Maybe They're On To Us
by ValleyToHell
Summary: Mel was prepared for this day. It was every man for themselves, and with no one watching out for her, she had to survive on her own. Finding herself in a bad situation, she falls upon the Greene's farm and feels safe there, so she becomes the families protector. What happens when she reunites with her family and finds salvation from an unlikely source? OC/Daryl D
1. Chapter 1

It had been a Thursday evening when all broadcast systems turned off to sound the alarm that a natural disaster had taken over the United States. It was a Saturday when the broadcast switched to say that it was a global disaster, shooting down the theory that terrorists had invaded The U.S.

This was man-made; some scientist brought this onto its own human race without even thinking twice about it. He screwed up some sort of mix of chemicals and injected it into some test patient, and then that person bit into someone else and it started to multiply. It multiplied rapidly, too quickly for people to kill them all.

Walkers are what I call them, some call them zombies, and some call them the dead. Walkers fit more perfectly than the others because all they did was walk around, searching for their next meal, their next fresh meat. I had been in Arizona at the time visiting friends from college when the first news hit, sending people into a panic and the first thing I could think of was getting supplies.

I may have gotten punched, and kicked at a few times while I filled up a few gas cans and tossed them into the backseat of my car but it was worth it. I had enough food to last me a few weeks, or I could even stretch it out to a few months if I cut down my meals to small portions.

When I got back home to Georgia, the streets were empty in my neighborhood as I pulled down the small road, my eyes darting around and I kept at a slow pace. No walkers, no anybody. Telephone lines were the first things cut out of power, so calling my family was out of question, so I had to drive home to just find them gone, everyone was gone. I pulled up to the house, parking and barely shutting the door after I grabbed the gun from the passenger's side seat and held onto it tightly, pulling the clip out to check the rounds and nodded, pushing it back into place and clicked the safety off.

The first thing I learned from my daddy was to defend myself, he didn't want his only daughter and only family left to get herself hurt out in the world. Kick boxing classes, boxing, defense classes, and shooting ranges. Now as I looked around at the empty and quiet day lit street, I just prayed that he was locked up in his house or he was just gone like the others. I opened the front door quietly and carefully, leaving it open a foot just in case I had to make a quick escape. As I leaned against a wall and took a deep breath, I held the gun in both hands against my chest, ready for anything.

As I turned the corner, I noticed the coffee table tipped over, the television gone, some of the technology as well. Looters, I guessed right off the bat. Televisions weren't working, and the technology wouldn't work without the power, the looters were probably dead by now.

"Daddy?" I whispered out, my throat closed over my voice that was just laced with a southern twang. My eyes glancing around for any struggling points in the house but there weren't any that I could easily pick up on.

"Daddy?" I called out a bit louder this time and heard a sound from down the hall, which caused me to take a step back and to take another deep breath and then turned the corner to the hallway, the gun pointed out in front of me.

"Call out if you're in their dad or I'm shootin'!" I called out loudly this time and the back door of his room opened up "Melanie?" I heard a rough, southern voice of my father and I let the gun fall to my side, my tight chest relieved as it let out the deep sigh that had been stuck there.

"Dad?" I whispered and walked down the hall, glancing around to see some blood spots on the wall and carpet. A struggle, I noticed and he stepped out of the room, holding himself up by his arm against the doorway. He was bleeding from his upper shoulder and it was wrapped in gauze.

"Oh thank the lord" I hugged him tight, letting a few tears fall. He brushed his fingers down my blonde hair and pushed me back a bit to look me over.

"Are you bit, scratched?" I shook my head at him, keeping my eyes on his face.

"No" His thumb moved over the black and blue mark on my cheek and I winced in pain slightly.

"Some guy back in Tennessee, don't matter. What happened? Why didn't you leave?" I asked him, after giving him a brief reason why there was an injury on my face.

"I was waitin' for you" He sighed, pushing the door closed as we walked in and I noticed the dead walker on the ground by the bed, a knife wound to the head, was that?

"She came by yesterday, I didn't think anything about it, so we stayed here. She was fine 'til last night, she woke up and she was…" I nodded, looking back to him and then back to his girlfriend that he had been seeing for more than 2 and half years.

"I'm sorry" I whispered and he smiled gently and nodded and sat down on the edge of his bed, pulling at his pistol and putting it down on the bed beside him.

"What happened there?" I asked, motioning to his arm and he looked down at the bleeding wound wrapped up but it had still bled though.

"She woke up early this mornin', groaning and shit. She got the fever; I didn't see any bites…" He explained to me and then trailed off as he started to unwrap the gauze slowly.

My eyes widened, catching on to what he was telling me. "No, dad please, don't tell me…" I started to say, nearly begging him to confirm that he hadn't been bit.

And there it was, a perfectly shaped bite against the tattoo that had been there of my name. My hand twitched for the gun at my side but I stopped and took a step towards him "I tried helpin' her, before I knew it she had bit me and then I killed her. Lift up her arm Mel" He told me slowly, keeping his eyes off of the bite mark and on my face to register my reaction. I looked over to Trisha and walked over and crouched down a bit and moved her dead limp arm up and there it was a two line nasty scratch.

"She had on a long shirt, she told me that she hadn't been bit but I didn't ask about…" I nodded, tensing my jaw a bit "I've been in here contemplating when to…" He trailed off again, not being able to say the words. He was thinking about killing himself now instead of turning into one of those undead creatures that weren't really alive anymore until they fed on human flesh.

"No dad" I whispered and ran to him and hugged him as I sat on his knee. He held onto me tight, and I heard in his voice that he was crying "I couldn't do it until I saw you again girl, I knew you'd come back. I knew I raised ya right to know how to defend yourself."

I nodded against his shoulder and he pushed me back a bit "I grabbed all the ammo and guns, knives I have and put them in a bag. I need you to take it." I nodded without hesitation and then he reached over and handed me his pistol. "I will" I whispered and he brought his hands up to my face and kissed my forehead "You look so much like your mother." He kissed my forehead again and I cried as he pulled me close to him again.

My heart was breaking. What was I supposed to do without him? How was I supposed to survive without him? I hadn't killed any walkers yet, how was I supposed to just shoot someone in the head and think that it was right? These were people before, they had lives, and they didn't want this. No one wanted this.

"Baby girl" He whispered to me gently and I lifted my soaked face from his shoulder and looked at him, his eyes were blood shot but no tears escaped his eyes.

"I need you to do it" He whispered and I was confused for a moment before reality set in quickly.

I instantly and frantically shook my head and said "I can't do that daddy; you can't expect me to."

His forehead and his upper lip had begun to sweat as I searched his face. He had the fever; the virus was already in his system. My bottom lip trembled as he begged in a heap of whispers "If you don't, I'm just going to come back and be one of those monsters… I can't be that, you can't see me like that. Please girl, do this for me." I shook my head and stood up from him now and he let out a deep breath, still holding onto the pistol against his lap and hand.

"Mary Anna and Susan, we were at the house when the news broke…" I turned back to him "I told them to stay at the apartment but they wouldn't listen and right outside of the door were so many walkers Daddy, they both got killed, bitten into and I just stood there screaming. I couldn't do anything… so you can't expect me to just shoot ya in the head. It's not going to happen." I confessed to him as my hands moved to wipe away the tears against my cheeks and then my fingers brushed back my blonde hair from my forehead.

"I taught you better than that girl" He sighed, standing up slowly, and carefully.

"I stayed inside of a closet in the house until it was clear of walkers, Daddy; I stayed in that closet for a week and a half. Finally I got enough courage and I got into my car and drove to the first gas station" I pressed my fingers to my black and blue cheek and eye and looked at him "I filled up 3 gas tanks full, it was chaos."

"First rule of survival, get supplies. You did that" He said to me, almost as if he was proud of me but it didn't read on his face. He still looked disappointed that I didn't come out of that closet for a week and a half. I had turned into a coward after watching my only friends die right in front of me, there had been nothing I could have done for them anyways, they didn't listen and they got themselves killed.

I nodded at him quietly, "Then I went to a store and just grabbed whatever canned food I could find, then knives…" I continued.

He nodded slowly, putting the pistol down on the dresser as he looked at himself in the mirror, his eyes glancing over the bite that was slowly turning him into a monster, into a walker. My chest tightened while I watched him. Sometimes I had thought I would wake from this terrible nightmare but this was reality, this was life now.

"I drove to Rick's, Lori and Carl was gone… drove by the hospital, there were so many bodies on the ground that I couldn't even make it down the street… So I can just assume that every one of my family is dead Daddy." I cried out the last part, putting a hand over my mouth to keep in the small strangled cries.

"Shane came by about two weeks ago, said that Rick was dead" He said this without emotion, like he had dealt with the death and then moved on rather quickly. I understood that Rick wasn't his son, but he was still my brother. I closed my eyes, holding in the strangling cry in my chest once again.

"He told me to come with him, but you were gone and by that time all phones were out, all the damn power was out. He said he was taking Lori and Carl and getting' out of here and into the woods somewhere, someplace safe." I nodded slowly, Lori and Carl were safe… but my brother… he was dead.

"Girl" He said, kicking me out of my train of thought as I wiped my face free from tears "I was with her for a good 12 hours before she fell asleep and turned…" I nodded at his comment, meaning that I still had time with him before all hell broke loose.

"We should make the best of it then" I whispered and he nodded slowly "What do you want for dinner?" I smiled gently and he shook his head at me, walking back to his closet and pulling out a bag and tossed it up onto the bed "None of that" He muttered to me but I shook my head and put a hand onto my hip and smiled gently at his stubborn attitude.

"I want to, Daddy, just tell me what you want" He finally smirked and turned around to look me over, shaking his head a bit at a thought to himself.

"How about that famous chicken soup you make?" I nodded and slipped my arms through my jacket while pulling it off and tossed it onto the bed with the bag of guns and knives.

"I can do that, gas still work?" I asked, while pulling my hair up into a high pony tail.

'Haven't used it much, I'm sure it's still workin.'"

"Why don't you stay here and rest while I make it up."

"No, why don't we make it together?" He suggested and I gave a quick nod.

The gas stove worked great and just after, I lit a few candles as we sat on the floor in the living room while we ate slowly and spoke about what I had to do mostly to keep surviving in a world without him in it.

"You're better off by yaself, you can't trust anyone anymore girl, do you understand? But if you can find Lori, stay with her as long as possible, don't stop looking for your family, you got it?" I nodded briefly at his statement.

"I won't stop looking for them daddy" I repeated and he nodded, leaning back against the couch and sighed deeply, wiping his hand over his damp forehead.

"Come on over" He said and I scooted closer to him and he wrapped an arm around my shoulders as I cuddled into his side, my arm wrapped around his stomach

"When did ya get so grown up?" He whispered into my hair and I smiled, a few tears escaping my eyes as my hand clenched his blue shirt. "I remember you being just 6 years old, cooking dinner with your ma and now…" He trailed off and I smiled gently, remembering all of those times that my mom would have to pull over the crate so I could help her on the counter because I was too short to reach everything properly without hurting myself.

"I grew up dad, I'm 24 now." He nodded and kissed my hair again. He groaned slightly and I tensed until he relaxed, but I was still tense.

"24" He whispered mostly to himself "You'll be 25 next month" He continued and I bit down on my tongue to hide away the tears, to think about anything but spending a birthday without him.

"I love you daddy" I whispered and he held me tighter to his side

"I know girl, shh, it's alright" He patted my wavy hair down my back and held onto me as I cried against his chest. His soothing wouldn't calm this pain that was traveling throughout my whole body. My head ached, my chest wouldn't loosen up, and my hands shook. I was losing my dad too quickly, in this most unfair way. I was never going to be able to calm down, he had to understand that.

After another 2 hours, I glanced down at my watch, it was 10pm now. I sat across from him against the wall while he sat against the couch. He was looking worse by the minute and he had told me to move away from him, just to be sure that he wouldn't hurt me. He didn't know how this worked, I didn't either. He was paler, shakier, and his eyes had looked like they were sinking into his head, as if he had the flu and he was desperate for sleep.

"I take back what I said" He muttered and I looked at him curiously. "You need to find someone to protect you, a good man." I shook my head at his statement.

"I'm better off on my own, like you said you can't trust anybody" He shook his head at me and lifted his hands up from the floor to rest them onto his lap.

"You have to trust someone, if you don't, you'll lose yourself, your humanity." I nodded slowly, putting the pistol down beside me onto the floor that he had handed to me just an hour ago and pulled my knees up to my chest.

"I know it's gonna be hard, and it may take years to find a man that you can trust but you gotta, promise me that, girl."

"I promise" I whispered and he nodded, coughing a bit into his hand.

"Can't give up hope girl, there has to be at least one decent man left on this planet that'll keep ya safe when I can't" I looked down at my knees, taking a deep breath to hold in the emotions.

"And he may not see it at first, that spark in ya girl, but keep with it if it feels right. Get a guy like Ted, Ted was a good guy." I laughed under my breath, trying to banish the thoughts that Ted was probably dead now, or he might even be alive, he was good at defending himself.

"I think Ted was gay daddy" He laughed under his breath, it was throaty, and yet painful to hear because it was one of the last moments I was going to hear it from him again.

"Ted wasn't no gay; he was a good, strong man. He went out with that hot chick, whatshername…"

"He was seein' a guy, Daddy he was gay, you just over looked it 'cause he liked football and cars." He laughed again and brought his head back down to look at me.

"Maybe he was, but he took care of you, didn't he?"

I nodded, thinking about to the times when Ted was there for me, throwing punches at an old boyfriend of mine that got a little too rough with me one night. I still had the scar on my forearm from being pushed into the fence, one of the wires was sticking out and it cut into my arm, and the scar reminded me of the day after, my daddy coming into my room demanding that I take all of those defensive classes, best thing he could have done for me. I was on a spiral downwards, at 18 I had learned everything that I needed in life. Never thought it would come in handy, but now that the world had gone to shit, it was helping a lot now-a-days.

"What are you thinking of?" He asked and I glanced at him, smiling.

"The night that Ted punched out Bobby, and the mornin' after, you yelling' and cussin' at me to take those damn classes."

He smiled gently "Came in handy darling', didn't it?" I nodded, laughing under my breath.

"You were right" I whispered and he laughed deeper this time.

"Usually am girl" I smiled as he laughed again and then sighed deeply.

"I'm gonna go get a cold clothe for ya head."

He nodded and I pushed myself up and walked into the kitchen, tossing the bowls in the sink and putting water on the towel and walked back to see him dozing off into sleep. I crouched down to his side and patted his hot forehead and down over his cheeks and neck where he had been sweating.

"Ya have to be strong 'til ya find that person Mel" He whispered and I nodded.

"I will daddy."

"Meanin' no cryin', cryin' is weakness, and ya can't let people take advantage of that." I nodded, wiping at my face again from the tears that had fallen once again.

"You're a beautiful girl, people will try and take advantage of it… and ya have to fight back, every chance ya get, fight back and don't stop fightin' back 'til you're safe."

"Daddy, I know" I repeated, as I continued to wipe his feverish forehead.

"I'm reassuring myself that ya do know." He whispered out, looking up at me with those blue-grey eyes of his. I leaned forward and kissed his cheek gently to confirm the reassurance.

"I'm gonna be strong Daddy, no one is gonna take advantage of me, I know how to shoot, I know how to use a knife. I know how to use my fists and my legs. Daddy you taught me everything that I needed to know for this day, this time that we live in now. And if god-forbid I get bit, or scratched, I'll end it myself… but I'm not going to get bit, or scratched, or harmed in anyway because I know how to fight back." He nodded, keeping his blue-grey eyes on my face and I said "And I'm not gonna stop until I find a guy like you daddy, screw Ted, you were much better at protecting me."

That made him smile at the corner of his dry lips and he wrapped his weak arm around my back and I held onto him, my arms wrapped around his shoulders.

"I love ya girl, ya were the best thing that ever happened to me, even if I didn't show it half the time, I still loved ya through it all, the divorce, the cancer, your mom dying…" I nodded, my jaw tensing as my eyes closed tightly, trying to hold back the emotion but it was so hard as my tears spilled onto his blue shirt.

"I love you too Daddy" I pulled back a bit and looked at his face again, his eyes again, his smile again.

"Promise me that you'll do it, I can't be like that…" He faded off his words, still not being able to say it out loud in front of me. I nodded.

"I will, I promise. You don't have to worry about that." He smiled gently and pulled me against him and we stayed like that until 1am when he started to wheeze a bit and I got off of him and laid him down on the carpet, tucking a pillow under his head as he kept his eyes shut as he struggled.

I continued to pat his forehead with the cool cloth as his lips twitched up a bit. And I kept singing to him quietly upon his request as he rested there, his chest rising and falling slowly as his body sweat out the fever. It was 5am when he finally stopped struggling for breath and his chest stopped rising, and I bit back a cry and pressed my fingers against his throat to check his pulse but it was gone. His body was so hot; it was felt like sticking your hand into an oven after it had been shut off for a second.

"Oh daddy" I whispered, my hand holding the pistol in my hand tightly as I flicked the switch from safety to off and stood up, his words repeating in my head, there was no more crying, no room for emotions not anymore if I had to do this. If it helped me survive, I was willing to do anything in order to stay alive.

I wrapped the sheet around his heavy body tightly, tucking his arms against his sides as I wrapped him so he wouldn't be able to move when he woke. It was going to be awhile until he finally did start waking up, so now was the time in which I grabbed what I could. Going through the cabinets, I grabbed pouches of Kool-Aid mix and canned foods and a few pots. Tossing them into my car, I looked around outside, still no walkers… where the hell where they all?

I walked into his room, looked over at Trish and sighed before grabbing the drawer and pulling it open to grab a few of his shirts and a few sweatshirts. Tossing them into a suitcase, and then grabbed the jewelry and pulled on the necklace he wore all of the time with the thin lined cross and then I slid his wedding band onto the necklace with the cross and clasped it onto my neck and put the necklace under my black shirt before looking at myself in the mirror. Pulling my hair back up tightly into a ponytail, I watched as my eyes faded from those bright blue-grey eyes to haunting ones, ones that I never seen before.

Grabbing the sheet from the bed, I tossed it over Trish and pressed my hand to her chest and whispered "I'm sorry." Then I stood up and walked back into the living room, and along the way I grabbed a few blankets and then walked outside to toss the things into the backseat and trunk of my.

I sat on the side of the couch, my eyes dropping from the lack of sleep but I waited. I waited until I saw the first movement of his hands starting to twitch under the tightly wrapped sheets around him like a cocoon. It had taken just over 2 hours for him to wake; I thought it would have taken longer to be honest.

Standing up slowly, I stepped on either side of his body and looked down at him. I needed to see it; I needed to see the eyes that weren't my father's. His arms started to move again trying to free himself from the hold that he was in but it was no use. Then he started to groan as I put my hands on the pistol and aimed it at his forehead.

"Daddy, just open your eyes" I whispered and he did, as if on command and they opened slowly, his eyes darting from side to side until they rested on me. They weren't his eyes. They were glazed over, yellowish; the blue-grey iris's no longer vibrant as he stared up at me, hunger crossing his features.

"I promised" I whispered and leaned down a bit while his legs struggled to get free now. I was his meal now; I was no longer his daughter. He was no longer my father; he was a walker, a monster that he never wanted to become.

I pressed the cool metal to his forehead, closed my eyes and pulled the trigger.


	2. Chapter 2

**Decided to update early, I've been on a tear this week with writing so here you go, the second chapter. Hope you all enjoy it! (BTW reviews are always nice. I love when people critique my writing so have at it! And if there are any suggestions as in to how Daryl and Melanie should meet, I'm all ears) xo**

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My hands gripped onto the leather bars as I drove down the empty dirt road, my thighs vibrating under the leather seated motorcycle under me. As the farm house came into view, I let out a deep breath, thankful that it was still there after a day in town. A few people were out on the farm, at the chicken coop or attending to the horses. I kicked the bike stand down and hopped off to pull open the guarded gate that secluded the farm from the outside world, and then pushed my bike slowly over to the other side and then shut and locked the gate behind me once again.

Throwing my leg over the bike, I pushed the kick stand back into place with the heel of my boot and drove down to the house and shut off the motorcycle and rested the kick stand back into the dirt so the bike didn't tip over like the first few times I had parked it anywhere. Slipping my keys into my leather jacket pocket, I pulled at the large and heavy bag on my back as a blonde girl, just at the age of 16 came to help me carry the second bag into the house.

"Did you get it?" She whispered to me, leaning just nearly by my shoulder and I nodded quietly and put my finger to my lips to make her be quiet. If her father found out what she had requested I grab, I would have been certainly thrown out from this safe haven. Pulling at the small box from the bottom of the bag, I slipped it to her and she quickly pushed it into the pocket of her sweatshirt and nodded at me before turning to leave as if nothing had happened.

I rolled my eyes as I pulled at the 20 cans of food I found and placed them up in the cabinet. Pulling off my leather jacket, I put the waters into the shade before I felt a hand on my shoulder and I tensed up, stopping what I was doing immediately.

"How many times do I have to tell you Maggie?" I hissed and she pulled her hand away quickly as I took a deep breath, then I slowly turned around to face her.

"I'm sorry, it's a habit" She apologized and I brushed it off, nodding quietly.

"I grabbed at the shit that I could get, ran into a few walkers but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle" I told her as I pulled at the empty bag and then handed her the other.

"Ran into a medical store, grabbed the rest of the medicine I could and got out" I told her as she gripped onto the heavier bag.

"Thanks dad'll be happy you found it" She told me as she pulled the bag up onto her shoulder.

I nodded briefly and grabbed my jacket, then said to her "Just holler when the foods done."

I didn't wait for her to respond as I walked outside and down the porch steps, seeing the day lit sky and shook my head. I really wish I could have found sunglasses in town, or even ones that I could have snapped the lenses into. The southern Georgian sun was too bright these days and being out on the farm or in my tent most of the time, I had become tanner than I was when I was on my own for 5 months.

I rubbed at my olive toned arm as I pushed open the flap of my tent and closed it back up behind me. Dropping my jacket onto the small table that I had set up inside there which had all of my weapons still on it, as well as my journal, a few books, and a crossbow tucked into the side against the tent's screen.

Pulling at the dark purple tank top that I had put on yesterday morning, I tossed it to the side and grabbed a water and unscrewed it as I washed against my flat stomach and up over my breasts, around my dirty neck and over my arms. Taking a sip of it, I closed it tight and tossed it onto the bed while kicking off my dirty ripped up jeans and pulling on new underwear and new jeans I had found in town last night. Spreading the deodorant onto my underarms, I pulled on my bra and then a new black wife beater tank. Pulling at my long blonde hair that was tight in a braid, I flipped my head over and ran my fingers down through the curls and then pulled it up into a tight, high pony tail so it was out of my face while I cleaned the weapons I had used from going into town.

Sitting down on the edge of the bed, I tossed a rag over my thigh and started to wipe down the long bladed knife, trying to get it as clean as possible before going to the next knife, and then a few arrows. In the time that it took me to clean my weapons it had become dusk, fading slowly into the darkness. Pushing my newly cleaned long bladed knife into the waist band belt of my jeans, I laid down on the cot I had set up here just over 2 months ago and stared up at the ceiling at the one photo, in which was worn and cut at the edges but the man in the photo was still clear as if the photo was taken yesterday. If only that photo was taken yesterday, I thought, turning over onto my side to try and relax my stressed and battered muscles. Before I knew it, the exhaustion caught up to me and my eyes drifted closed.

_The chattering just wouldn't stop no matter how hard and how tight I held the blanket around me, over my head in the backseat of my car. It had been a week since I had killed Daddy and now, here I was being a coward again when I was supposed to be out there in the woods trying to find Lori and Carl. _

_With one hand on a knife under the blanket, I rolled onto my side in the backseat and closed my eyes trying to just think about sleep. If I fell asleep, I wouldn't feel this cold and I would be warm on a beach somewhere, anywhere but here. I didn't want to think of myself parked on the side of the road, huddled under a black blanket so if any walkers walked by they wouldn't see me if they peered in. _

_After driving into the city of Atlanta and nearly dying a few times from the herds of walkers… I had never seen so many just gathered, it was frightening to stand there and see as I made my way into shops to gather a few things for my own safety but I didn't make it that far into the my first store when a walker was in my face. The first walker that I had come into contact with since my daddy and I quickly pushed the knife into the side of its head and bolted back to my car. _

_The walkers had followed my car for a few miles but I soon ditched them when I went the back roads into the woods. Since that day, 4 days ago, I had been here in the car too afraid to step foot back out in the world. I was living off a bottle of flat soda and sour and cream chips. It was better than the shit of a world outside of these car doors; I had already almost died out there just trying to grab things for myself, I wasn't about to risk it again. _

_"Don't stop looking for ya family girl, you got it?" The many last words of my daddy rang through my head now as I looked up at the roof of the car. Flashes of his cold, yellow eyes popped up into my mind and I shook my head trying to get them out. I had promised him that on his damn death bed and now look at me. I was pathetic. I was a pathetic excuse for a daughter and a sad excuse for a human being. I was surprised that I hadn't been bit or even eaten alive yet, but only a few walkers had been through these woods by me and the car wasn't really a distraction to them. _

_I missed texting; I missed music, and just lying in grass and looking up at the stars without the fear of dying. I missed my dad, my brother, my nephew, my sister-in-law. "Get up and get movin', you are stronger than this girl" My daddy's words rang through my ears again as I kicked off the blanket, and slowly pushed my arms down onto the cushioned seat below me to look around at the dark woods that surrounded the car._

_"You **are** stronger than this" I whispered to myself and then pushed the door open to feel the chill of the late fall air around me before pulling my knife from my hand and pushed it into the other, stretching out my cold, throbbing fingers from clenching the handle too tightly for a long period of time. "Meanin' no more cryin', cryin' is weakness" His words repeated in my head as I pulled open the front door and pushed the keys in and turned the car on. Scouting the nearby area's would be best, maybe I could run into some people, ask if any of them heard of any refugee camps that hadn't been overthrown by walkers yet._

_Pulling away from the ditch, I did a U-turn and drove until I was back on the highway, going slow enough so I didn't hit cars that were lined up in piles. It was as if people were going into the city this way and they just hopped out of their cars, seeing no use once the herds came, or maybe those herds were all of owners of the pile up of cars. I quickly banished the thought from my mind as I continued to drive carefully, last thing I needed was an accidental car crash. _

_I drove my way along the high way and into the city once again, I had to be in and out of the city by the time the light came up and according to my watch, I had just over 2 hours. Brushing my fingers back through my hair, I pulled off down a side street and weaved my way around streets until I hit the back roads once again. Getting through the city was the only way I could get to any other town, this was absolutely necessary to do before dawn. Walkers had better eye sight, better hunting skills when it was brighter, I still didn't understand it but it's what I picked up on when I was by myself for this past week and a half. _

"Melanie!" I heard my name being shouted from outside and my hand went to the knife as I pulled it out and opened up the tent to look around, trying to find the threat. But to my disarray, there wasn't one.

"Food's ready if ya want any" Jimmy called from the porch and I sighed, pushing my knife back into my jeans and closing up my tent as I mumbled a few curses under my breath. Turning around, I walked through the field and up the porch steps and into the house through the screen door. Everyone was at the dinner table, just like they always were, they always said grace before I arrived, knowing damn well I didn't want to hear it.

_The hand was sticking out for me, resting on top of the table by my hand to take as I glanced around at the family before me, waiting for me to take the hand. Why the hell did they say grace? There wasn't any God out there to give thanks to. If there was a God, wouldn't you think he'd clean this shit up by now? He wiped out nearly all the people, his people. There wasn't a God, at least not for me and these people were stupid for believing in him still. _

_"You take my hand and Beth's" Patricia had said to me in a whisper and just as she took my hand in hers, I pulled my hands back onto my lap and stood up, pushing the chair back behind me. That made Hershel stand, as well as Otis and Jimmy. I had attacked Jimmy the other day when he tried to touch me, there was no way any of there hands were coming near me, even if it was in a kind gesture. I couldn't trust these people, I couldn't trust anyone. I rubbed at the bandage on my hand that Patricia had touched and she quickly tried to apologize but I waved it off, ignoring her._

_"I don't do grace 'cause there isn't a God, look around you, if God was real wouldn't ya think he'd save you all by now" I kept my eyes on Hershel, and then grabbed my plate of food and walked away from the stunned table. Even if these people had taken me in with open arms after finding me on their front doorstep, patched me up, bathed and fed me. There was no way in hell that I was going to pretend that this world was alright, and that things hadn't been rough for me out there. Scratching at the scar on the side of my neck, I sat on the porch chair, brought my feet up under me and dug into the warm food._

"You alright?" I heard and glanced at Jimmy from across the table and nodded my head at him.

"Just thinkin'…" I said to him and he smiled briefly before shoving a forkful of corn into his mouth. I slowly ate my food as I always did, savoring every taste until it was finally all gone 20 minutes later. I knew what it was like to stave, the only thing I could be thankful for these days was the food here that the girls cooked every night. My stomach never growled in anger anymore, there were no more painful rib bones sticking out from my skin. Sure my hip bones stuck out but that was just 'cause I had hips.

Maggie walked over and grabbed my empty plate and started to wash it with the others at the sink while Hershel sat back down in front of me. Usually Otis was here but he went to bed early to start the morning off fresh to hunt in the woods.

"I wanted to thank you for the medical supplies, it is greatly appreciated" He said to me and half smiled as I shrugged and nodded at him.

"Least I could do, the store was there, barely any walkers blockin' it" I said to him, brushing my hand down my arm, my eyes glancing over a few scars before looking back at him.

"You've helped my family in such a great deal by stayin' here; I know it hasn't been easy. But we do appreciate it, all of us, for keeping it safe around here" He said to me, reaching out for my hand but then slid them back as if he wasn't about to touch me, console me some way. I didn't need any consoling; there wasn't anything wrong with me.

"Are you headed out with Otis tomorrow on his huntin' trip?" He asked me and I shook my head at him.

"Otis said he didn't need any help, big guy's got himself handled, taught him how to use the rifle properly so it doesn't backfire on his shoulder anymore. Plus I think I'm gonna head back into town; see what else I can find. I saw a few shops untouched but it was getting dark by that time."

"Why don't you bring Jimmy with you? If there are as many walkers there as there was today…" I shook my head at his statement, so he didn't finish it. He was probably thinking back to the first time I said I was headed into town to pick up things, I needed more medicine for a wound on my shoulder before it got infected and I had told Hershel that it was better I went alone, the less people around me the better. Plus Jimmy was only 17, he was still learning the ropes on shooting and killin' walkers, I had been doing it for well over 7 months now.

"If you change your mind" He said as he stood up "Jimmy's available, even one of the girls. I'm sure they wouldn't mind getting off the property for a while." I nodded and stood up as well, stretching out the kink that was in my lower back. The girls were alright, we talked, most of the time. Sure, I'd shut down after an hour or two talking to them but it was only because they started to get personal with the questions. They knew how to get me talking about personal shit though, get a few drinks in me and I'd spill but I wasn't myself when I was drunk.

I had gone out on a bender after having my first glass of scotch in months, drinking the whole bottle and throwing shit around. Just to cool off, I went into town and killed walkers, thinking it was hysterical because I was laughing as I was doing it. The morning after I had woken up in my car, the air bag was deployed and my face was resting against it. I had crashed into a brick building when I was drunk, I barely remembered it but the bruise that it left on the side of my face for 2 weeks reminded me to not drink again.

The next morning, I went into the house to shower, another thankful point in my life. Hershel said I could come and go into the house as I needed, this was my home now, as he put it because he trusted me to keep everyone in this house safe. He trusted me to keep his family safe, and I had been for 2 months.

After my shower, I pulled on my tight black jeans and a white wife beater along with the usual undergarments Pulling at my wet hair, I pulled it and wrapped it into a braid and pulled it over my shoulder. Pushing my feet into my worn boots, I walked down the steps and out the door. People were up and around the farm, tending to their chores and I just wanted to go back into town. Otis was just getting ready to leave while I pulled at the leather belt and wrapped it tightly around my waist and slid three knifes into stitched out pockets and then slid my gun into the back waistband of my jeans, then pulled on a light flannel but didn't button it up.

After 4 months by myself on the road, I had to go out and find new clothes because my once 15 jeans size had shrunk to a 7, and my large sized t shirt, were now a small or medium due to being a little top heavy, if ya know what I mean.

"Are ya headed out?" I heard and turned around after closing up the tent and nodded at Otis. He had his rifle over his shoulder with the strap under his hand to hold it there in place.

"Yeah, thought I'd try and find better boots, these are getting pretty worn. Need anything?" He shrugged and looked down at my boots that had a hole in the toe and the back of one was peeling off at the rubber sole.

"Nah, but could you grab Patricia some um…" He scratched the side of his bald head and I nodded, understanding what he was trying to tell me.

"That it Otis? You can't say Tampons? How long have you two been married?" I asked as I tied up one of my boots, looking up at him and he was chuckling under his breath, smiling and I rolled my eyes at the sight of him. I wasn't trying to be funny, guess it just sounded that way.

"Be careful in town, it's gonna be a hot day so lots of walkers" He mentioned to me as he took a few steps away as I adjusted my weapon belt, nodding at him.

"Yeah you too... out in the woods, don't be out too late, don't wanna have to go out there and find ya again" He smirked at my comment but I didn't. It had taken me over 8 hours to find him stuck under a fallen tree, a few dead walkers around him and just one shot left in his gun. He had gotten lucky because there had been a few more walkers headed his way without him even knowing it.

I grabbed my keys and walked over to my bike, tossing my leg up and over until I was sitting. I rolled up my sleeves to my elbows and pushed the kickstand back into place and started the bike up. Pushing the empty bags into the holder between my handlebars I turned the bike around to check that the gate was open and it was because Beth was out collecting things from the side of the woods. My jaw tensed a bit, she shouldn't be out that far… Pushing off the ground, I drove down the dirt road and passed the gate until I was near Beth and put my foot down to hold myself up.

"Beth, don't go too far in there. Have your eyes on someone back at the farm at all times. I'm gonna be gone for the day, probably be back by tonight" I said to her and she nodded, smiling gently at me before I pushed off the ground again and flew down the rest of the dirt road and turned the corner onto another dirt road to lead onto pavement streets into town.


	3. Chapter 3

**Thanks for the reviews and kind words! I'm going to try and get a new chapter up every few days, because I know I hate when stories that I'm reading take forever to update. Hope you enjoy Chapter 3 of MTOTU :) xo**

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I pushed my bike off to the side into an alley where it was out of view in case someone came through and decided to snatch it. I couldn't let that happen, someone had already stolen my car a few months back and it had taken me another month of walking around and searching for some sort of transportation that had gas, luckily there was one and it happened to be this beat up black Harley. I had to teach myself to drive it, wiping out a few times resulted in a few scars on my outer thigh that never really healed up too good.

Taking the empty cloth bags, I pushed them into the side of my boot then grabbed a knife from my waist band and started to walk against the brick wall. I had done this on countless occasions but this place was a little rougher than the other part of town I went to most of the time. This part had more walkers coming through due to the emptiness of the roads. At least for me, I could see better without cars in the way and buildings crumbling down onto the street.

Turning my head from the corner of the alleyway, I spotted two walkers coming out of a shop with broken windows. Glancing up at the sign, just a convenience market, it wasn't what I needed but I also was going to look inside just in case there were some sort of medical kits, could never have too many of those. So that's where I was going first, get rid of the walkers and then scout it out. Gripping the edge of my knife, I walked out, glancing from left to right with no hesitation while I made my way near the two walkers.

Both of the walkers heads turned towards me and they started to groan louder, there arms waving frantically and picking up their pace just to get to their food source. I stopped where I was in the middle of the street and let them come towards me while I moved my hand into the waistband of my jeans again and grabbed the other knife, holding onto the leather handle and just as they were a few feet in front of me, I attacked.

One blade sliced through a neck and the other into the temple in which he dropped onto the ground. A hand grabbed my shoulder and I turned quickly, shoving the long blade into the walkers head from behind me and he dropped against me, and then fell to the pavement with his friend. Wiping the blades against my jeans, I pushed one of them back into my waistband before stepping on one chest and then into the shop.

Smirking to myself, I quickly slid against the side wall by the register, my eyes darting from side to side. Where was that groaning coming from? I asked myself as I dropped to a crouching position hearing a thumping noise in one of the back aisles. Standing back up, I squinted my eyes and peered into the darkness of the back room. Where the fuck was that coming from?

"Hey!" I called out and took a few steps away from the wall and away from the register. More thumping noises came to my ears now, but no groaning like before. It was definitely a walker, maybe two but they weren't coming out from the back. Putting the knife back into my waistband, I slid my hand into the back of my jeans and pulled out the gun and held it down by my side as I walked towards the place in which I was hearing the sounds and stopped dead in my tracks.

It wasn't one or two walkers; it was 5 stuck in the backroom of the office. Were they locked in with a walker? I raised my eyebrows up in confusion, thinking back to the first time I had seen this and yet after I had killed those 3 walkers that were locked in a back room, I noticed that they weren't bit, or scratched. They were just zombified from each other, and still it made no sense and I still lost sleep over trying to understand my confusion.

The walkers were trying to break through the glass, obviously smelling me just beyond their grasp. Quickly deciding to ditch this place, I jogged out before they could even break through the glass and back out onto the deserted street. Where had all of the walkers gone anyway? I had been here just last month and it was crowded with walkers up and down the streets and in the shops. An eerie feeling came over me suddenly and I looked down the street and into the woods just about 5 miles from the small town. Did they all move into the woods? I asked myself, narrowing my eyes as I looked around at the empty town street again.

It was the only logical answer to this maddening question in her head. They all must have caught whiff of some humans in the woods and just formed a huge herd and left. Swallowing the hard lump in my throat, I pushed myself up and jumped over the broken window frame into the clothing shop. I guess I was getting my boots first. Why not? Pulling a few shirts from the racks, I stuffed them into the empty bag I pulled out of my boot and just started grabbing different clothes from racks.

"Now where are the shoes?" I whispered out loud, walking down the long middle aisle until my eyes fell upon a few shoe racks that had been pushed over and all the shoes scattered on the floor. Of course it wasn't going to be easy, nothing was ever easy anymore.

_" Don't scream" the man hissed into my ear as his meaty fingers tightened around the front of my throat. I kicked my leg out to wrap quickly around the back of his knee and pulled until it threw him off balance and he landed on his back. I pulled my gun from my back and aimed it down at him. His gun was pointed up at me, cocked and ready to blow me away within seconds. _

_"Hold on sweetheart I think we got off on the wrong foot here" He said up at me, his northern accent easily recognizable to my ears. My eyes took in his physical appearance; he looked to be about 35, he had dark matted short hair on his head, scruff on his cheeks and chin. His clothes were dirty and in scraps on his larger body. I took a step towards him and pressed my foot quickly to his most prized possession. I tapped him to let him know that I was there and I wasn't about to have him attack me again._

_"No need for that, are you by yourself?" He asked, not glancing around because he knew better. I was going to shoot him dead if he looked anywhere else but my gun or my face. I didn't open my mouth to answer him, I wasn't stupid and I was much smaller than him._

_"If you're gonna shoot me, go ahead. I have no ammo" He pulled his gun back and pushed it into the front of his pants "Haven't had ammo in two weeks." _

_Two weeks meant that he had to be carrying some other type of weapon on him, knife maybe, a machete? I pressed my foot down into his groin and he groaned and moved his hands to remove my leg but I crouched down quickly and pressed the end of my gun against his groin and he stopped his movements. _

_"You don't speak, I get it. Hold their own am I right? You must be on your own too if you aren't speaking to me. My names Drew, I lost the crew that I was with a few weeks back. Been trying to find them, you're the first living person I've come across since." He was rambling quickly, trying to defend himself so that I didn't shoot him. I glanced at him, looking him over and noticed a gold band around his ring finger, he was a married man. Tensing my jaw tightly, I pulled the gun back from his groin and stood, still aimed at him though._

_"Get up" I said to him, my voice low and hoarse from the lack of liquids I had sources to recently. He slowly pushed himself up to stand, his hands then came up in front of his chest to show that he wasn't going to make any sudden movements to any other weapons he had on him. _

_"Where are you from?" I asked him, narrowing my eyes at him and he replied quickly._

_"South Dakota. My wife and I had been with friends when this shit happened, so we formed a group and headed out to find a refugee camp, or a safe place to go before this blew over. We were hit with a herd, 20 or so of those things a few weeks back at our camp and well now here I am." I nodded slowly, putting my gun down by my side, keeping my finger on the trigger. I couldn't risk anything at this point. It had been 3 months since I had seen another human. _

_"Melanie" I said to him, clearing my throat, keeping my eyes on him and he nodded, the side of his mouth turning up into a gentle smile._

_"Pleasure I'm sure" I muttered and sighed, looking around the lowly dim lit department store and then back at the man, Drew. _

_"Are you with anyone? Or traveling alone looking for people?" He asked casually as I watched him reach down to pick up the bag that he had dropped. _

_"Looking, 5 months almost. Starting to think they died." I said flatly as I combed my eyes through the stacks of boxes by me in which I was headed for but he rudely interrupted me in that quest. _

_"Nasty mark right there, what happened?" He asked as his hand came down against my arm and I tensed at the touch and pulled back from him, my grip tightening on the gun. He lifted his hands again, apologizing silently to me._

_"Fell down trying to get away from walkers the other night, what about you, where'd that mark come from?" I pointed at his bare arm and he shrugged and walked by me to go to the boxes, I quickly turned around and watched him, my eyes narrowing. I still didn't trust the guy, I couldn't. _

_"Had a knife accident back at my camp, hasn't healed up yet…" I nodded and was about to walk towards the boxes but I was stopped when an arm wrapped around my waist and a knife blade was against my throat. I struggled but the person who had hold on me wasn't letting go. I saw Drew come at me, gun aimed at my head and I quickly reacted and turned my hand with the gun behind me and pulled the trigger. _

_I felt the pain of the blade slice against the side of my throat and I dropped to my side to avoid the bullet from Drew as I pulled my trigger and the bullet flew into his kneecap and then another into the side of his temple before he finally dropped onto the ground, blood pooling from under his head. Pressing my hand to the side of my throat where blood was coming from, I rolled over onto my other side when I felt the blade of a knife enter my upper calf and I screamed in agony as the guy tried to push it into me again but I quickly dodged it and pulled the trigger at him and he stopped moving._

_"Fuck, fuck, fuck" I muttered, pressing my hand to the open wound on my throat and then another hand onto the blood that had started to soak my jeans under my knee. _

_"You son of a bitch!" I screamed as I pulled off my long thermal shirt and grabbed my knife, ripping it open with the blade. I wrapped one half around my throat and the other around my calf tightly to stop the blood loss. Why did I keep getting into these situations? This was the third time I had let my guard down around people and they tried to take advantage of me. Pushing myself up onto my feet, I stumbled, grabbing onto a side white table. Holding onto my gun, I grabbed the knife from the ground and hobbled over to Drew and grabbed his gun. Pulling out the clip, I saw that it was loaded, except for one bullet missing. Shaking my head in pain and anger at myself, I pushed the spare gun into my bag with the knife and slid against the dark side wall to get out of here before any of their friends came to check on them._

_Seeing a walker when I came out of the building, I shot him in the head and tried to run back to my bike as best as I could. Pulling the keys out of my bloody jeans pocket, I hopped onto the bike and started it up and drove away. Never again, I kept telling myself after the first time I had been caught in the cross fire of humans trying to take my weapons. Never again, and now it happened for the third time. When was I going to learn to not trust anyone? _

_Pressing my hand against the soaked cloth against my neck, I swallowed hard. He didn't cut anything major; if he had I wouldn't be able to see straight right now and I'd be bleeding a hell of alot more. As I felt my boot fill up with blood, I knew that he had cut something major in my leg because a simple quick knife wound like that shouldn't be bleeding that much with something tightly wrapped around it. I turned the corner onto a dirt road, my eyes going fuzzy a few times as I tried to pick up speed on the bike. _

_"Stop it, stay awake, you're fine" I whispered to myself, reassuring myself that it wasn't that bad. In actuality, the knife wound sliced deep into my popliteal artery and I was quickly bleeding out. A long patch of farm came into view, and I wouldn't had even seen it if it weren't for the three cows by the fences. I had never gone to people to help me out, but right now I needed someone to help me, I'd even beg and give over my weapons if need be. _

_Turning the corner, my foot slipped on the side of the bike and before I knew it I was in the side patch of tall grass, the bike motor cutting off. My thigh scraped against the rocks on the road as the bike slid with me to a stop. I let out a loud whimper of pain, pushing against the ground while my palms got cut on the road's sharp rocks while I dug my fingers into the dirt to pull myself out of the grass. Getting myself onto the road, I pressed a hand against my calf and felt the warm squishy liquid drenching my hand while I dug and dragged my body over the road. Taking in a deep breath, I pushed myself up to stand and stumbled against the large fence, trying to push against it to open but it was locked. _

_That's when I saw lights from the corner of my eye, they were in the house and I let out the loudest scream I could muster up before falling onto my knees and onto my side, my face pressed against the dirt beneath me._

I weaved my way through the back roads and back to the farm through the night, it wasn't smart to be driving at night and I had learned that the hard way a few times over the past couple of weeks but recently it hadn't been too bad. Walkers barely went by the farm, so there wasn't a reason to worry about herds attacking me in the darkness. The first thing I saw after opening up the gate was light colored car. I raised my eyebrows and pushed my bike over the other side and then locked the gate back up before hopping back on my bike and parking it where I usually parked it, taking my keys and pushing them into my pocket, I held onto the bags and pulled out my gun, my eyes still on the car. Whose car was that?

I saw people on the porch of the house by the front windows and I called up "Hello?" I said it loud enough for the two people to hear me and I heard Maggie say something and I sighed in relief, pushing my gun back into the back of my jeans as I walked to the front steps. Seeing an Asian guy sitting down on one of the chairs and Maggie turned to look at me.

"What's going on?" I asked her, my eyes staying on the Asian and she walked over to me.

"We had a problem. Otis shot a boy by accident, my dad's been workin' on him all day." I handed her one of the heavy bags and she slung it up onto her shoulder and I nodded at her, walking a few steps towards the guy.

"Who are you?" I asked him, looking him over, noticing his baseball cap beside him as I narrowed my eyes at him. He had to be only in his early 20's. He stood up and I took a step back, my hand itching for my weapon.

"It's alright Mel; he was with the boy who got shot. He's with their camp. The mother and father are inside, Otis and one of theirs went to get more medical supplies at the high school. " I nodded as Maggie told me this from behind me. The high school? That place was full of walkers, why would they do that?

"I'm Glenn" He said and offered his hand and I looked down at it with confusion and back up at his face.

"I don't shake hands, but it's a pleasure Glenn. I'm Melanie, most people call me Mel 'round here." He nodded and smiled gently, dropping his hand and I turned to Maggie now.

"When did they leave, I'm goin' to go-" I was cut off by Maggie saying "No, they left hours ago, they should be back soon, seemed as if their guy knew what he was doin', he was a cop."

I licked over my bottom lip and nodded at her "I'm gonna go put this inside then, grabbed some clothes for you guys, don't know what's gonna fit but it's something." She smiled at me and nodded, "I'm sure whatever you grabbed is fine, as if it's not gonna get dirty anyway."

I grabbed the bag from her that she took and pulled open the front screen door and walked inside and straight past the first bedroom where he usually helped people in. Heading into the back kitchen, I put the kitchen supplies I found on up on the table and called out to Patricia at the end of the stair case. If Otis was out, she was most likely upstairs in her room praying. I was right, she came to the top of the stairs and saw me.

"Yeah?" She asked, walking down a few steps toward me.

"Here" I tossed her the tampon's box, she caught it and held it against her chest then nodded at me, smiling gently.

"Otis back yet?" I shook my head "Just heard about it, I'm sure he's fine though Patricia, don't worry too much." She nodded and I watched her take a deep relaxing breath, somehow seeing comfort in the words I told her.

"Need anything else? What about the boy, how's he doin'?" She asked as she walked down the steps and I shrugged as I walked back into the kitchen and opened up the bag on the table.

"Don't know, just got back in. Heard he got shot, that bad?" She nodded and brushed her fingers back through her blonde hair.

"Lost 'lot of blood, his dad needed to give him some of his blood just to keep his pressure down, still not looking too good though. Hopefully Otis gets back soon with the respirators so Hershel can operate" I nodded slowly and pulled out the clothes and handed her a few items and she smiled.

"Can ya put these in Maggie and Beth's room too?" She nodded at my question and before she left she said "If you need anything, just call up." She continued her walk up the steps as I grabbed the rest of the clothing from the bag.

I moved my toes around in my new brown boots, still trying to get the feel of them against my feet while I folded up the bags and walked back out of the house, hearing Hershel say that the boy was losing too much blood still. I shook my head from the thoughts that came up into my head as I continued walking down the steps and over to my bike to stuff the empty bags in the holder again. Walking down the dirt road a bit and into the grass I pulled open my tent flap, walked inside and tossed a few shirts and a pair of jeans I found in the store onto the table.

Hearing a car motor, I left the tent and zipped it back up as the blue truck moved along the grass and up to the front steps and the man got out, pulling a large heavy bag onto his shoulder and the front door slammed shut. Must be the cop… where was Otis though? Walking up a bit, I noticed new face in the crowd who were in front of the cop as they spoke and I stopped walking. My eyes falling from Glenn's face to Maggie's, then a heavier black man, then the face of my sister-in-law, then my brother. People were filing back into the house or back onto the porch as Rick grabbed Shane and hugged him.

They were all alive. I stood there on the road, watching with wide eyes as Rick and Shane spoke. I couldn't hear anything they were saying, but it didn't matter to me. They were all alive, everyone. That's when reality struck down on me. Who had been the boy that Otis shot? I bolted from my shocked stance and started to run towards them yelling.

"RICK!"


	4. Chapter 4

**I couldn't stop writing after chapter 3, so I had to break it up into two chapters. Here's Chapter 4, hope you all enjoy! Please leave feedback; negative, or positive! xo**

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Rick turned his head and Shane turned around in confusion to look at me running towards them, my braid bouncing against my back. They were here. I had been searching for months and they were alive, here in Georgia still, right under my nose. My heart pounded in my chest frantically and my running slowed to a stop about 10 feet from them, my hands shook with adrenaline. Hell, my whole body was shaking. Rick looked at me shocked; his lips parting on his slightly pale sicken face before Lori finally came running at me and threw her arms around my shoulders and I stumbled back a few feet but held onto her tight, tears falling from my closed eyes.

"Oh god, oh thank god" Lori said into my shoulder, crying as well. She pulled away from me as her hands came up to the sides of my face to look me over, to make sure I was real, just as I held onto her waist to make sure she was really standing there in front of me. She pulled me again and I held onto her, a wide smiled breaking over my face and it hurt to smile, it hurt to feel this happy. I felt her arms leave me a minute later and stronger ones were wrapped around me now, pulling me off of the ground and I instantly knew, without having to open my eyes who it was that was holding me

"I thought you were dead" He said into the side of my hair, his arms tight around my thin frame and he could have cracked a rib and I couldn't be pissed or angry. As long as this wasn't a dream because I've had these dreams before and I've woken up in a cold sweat so many nights.

"Please tell me this isn't a dream" I mumbled against his chest and he shook his head, giving me another squeeze to let me know that my confirmation was right, he was alive.

"It's not, I'm here. We're here." I pulled back and looked up at his ashen face from giving too much blood to Carl.

"Oh god, Carl…" I whispered, horror falling onto my face and he nodded slightly. "I need to go check on him, don't go" I whispered to him, my fingers tightening on his t shirt and he shook his head at me and I let him go, but was stopped when Shane was in front of me. A smile was brought up onto my tear tracked face and he smiled and wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me into him and I wrapped my arms around his shoulders.

"Otis died, didn't he?" He nodded against the side of my head and he gave me another long squeeze.

"The place was crawlin' with walkers; he said I should make a run for it back to the truck. That he'd cover me but he got taken down…" I bit back a sob and shook my head, pulling back from him and nodded at him gently and walked up the steps and into the house. Hershel was doing the operation as Patricia was in the room with him as well, they hadn't told her yet. I saw Carl on the steel table, he was so pale, and he almost looked dead.

"H-how is he doin'?" I asked, my voice cracking and Patricia looked over at me, her eyebrows rising up in confusion at the state I was in. She had never seen me like this, never seen me emotional at all, not once. I had hid that part of me because I had to be strong, I had to be the protector of the farm, emotions just got in the way, and when you showed emotion, people took advantage of that.

"He's gonna be fine… are you alright?" She asked me and I nodded, taking a few steps into the room as Hershel pulled out pieces of what looked like a bullet from the side of his stomach.

"He's my nephew" I whispered and she nearly dropped the bowl that she had in her hands that Hershel had been dropping the pieces of metal in.

"He is? Are you sure?" I nodded at her question, my fingers clenching into fists.

"My brother… his wife, they're his parents…" I took in another deep breath, my body still shaking.

"Oh goodness, I'm so happy ya found them!" Patricia said as Hershel dropped another piece of metal into the bowl, making a clanking noise.

"Do you um…" I started but Hershel cut me off by saying, "Why don't you tell his parents that he's going to be fine, workin' on the last piece right now." I nodded and turned around after my eyes started to form with hot tears again, pushing the screen door open, Rick came up the steps towards me.

"How is he?" He asked me, hope laced in his voice and I smiled gently, delivering the good news to them all.

"He's going to be fine. Hershel is on the last piece right now" Rick brought me in a hug again, but my body tensed up and I didn't hug him back. But he didn't care about that, he still held onto me for another few moments before pulling back and putting his hands to the sides of my face to look at me.

"I can't believe that you're actually here sis, I thought you were over taken in Arizona." I shook my head and looked up at him, my eyes flickering to the time, back 7 months ago when I left Arizona in a hurry to get back to Georgia.

"I went back, waited the walkers out, and left Arizona 'bout two weeks later and went back to the house… I tried gettin' to the hospital but it was a mess. Daddy he was…" I swallowed hard, closing my eyes and flashes on his yellowing eyes flashed in my head. "He got bit by Trish, his girlfriend; I had to put him down." I swallowed again at the bile that was threatening to come up.

"I'm sorry" He said to me, honesty and sympathy in his low southern voice and I looked down, nodding and taking a step back, I looked back as the front door swung open on its squeaky hinges and Hershel smiled at us and nodded.

"He's stable, you can all go in and see him now" Rich hugged Hershel and I took another step back, going down the porch steps as I felt a hand on my shoulder after I was half way towards my tent. Tensing, I grabbed his wrist and twisted it until I was around to look at him and then dropped his arm when he was groaning in pain, doubled over. He rubbed his wrist hard and looked me over.

"Ow" Shane muttered and I took in a shaky breath, the adrenaline high in my system right now. It was too high, I didn't know what to do with myself.

"Sorry…" I muttered and he raised an eyebrow at me.

"I was gonna ask where ya where goin' before ya almost broke my damn wrist off my arm" Shane said as he stopped rubbing his wrist and I licked over my bottom cut lip.

"Tent, I don't stay in the house…" I told him the truth, no use in lying; my tent was big enough to see from here.

"Why not in the house, how long ya been here for?" He asked again and I knew that he wasn't going to stop asking questions until he got everything out of me. He was a cop, a good interrogator, and it was annoying as shit.

"I just don't, and long enough to trust 'em, now will you kindly excuse me" I brushed passed him and got into my tent and zipped it up and took a few steps back and sat down on the edge of my bed. Why couldn't I just get over this? Shaking my arms out beside me, I let my head fall down until my chin was near my chest, taking in deep steady breaths. It was only a panic attack, I was fine.

"Snap out of it" I muttered to myself angrily, smacking the side of my face gently and pulling my legs up and laid my back down on the mattress, looking up at the darkness of the top of the tent. Closing my eyes, I pressed a hand to my aching chest once I got my breathing under control. I could hear the loud cry in the house before I fell asleep, the cry indicating that they told Patricia that her husband was dead.

_Pain. That was the word to describe how I felt when I woke up after passing out on that road in front of the farm house. It was a gut wrenching pain as I felt jabbing against my arm and then at the side of my neck. At least people were helping me, even if it hurt so much that I could keel over. Moving my arm away from the hard jabbing, I felt my arm being pushed down._

_"You have to stay still, it's pain medication" An old southern voice said and I stopped moving, if I was going to die at least I'd go numbly with medicine in my body to help the process._

_"Were you bit?" I shook my head, my face going slack as the medicine worked its way through my veins and I muttered "Knifed" Before slipping into the darkness once again. When I woke up, my eyes were heavy and the pain was gone. I was achy though, which was to be expected and I was laying on a bed, a soft comfortable bed, I almost forgot how soft they could be. After laying on the ground or the back seats of cars for the past half year, it was a nice change to be here in comfort. _

_"You're up" I heard from my right and I looked over at the doorway as an older man, white hair on his head but he was balding a bit, walked in. "How are you feeling?" He asked me and I looked down at my body now, I was in shorts and a loose tank top that wasn't mine. A white, thick bandage was wrapped around my knee and the back of it and I noticed a few bandages on my hands and then felt the one on the side of my throat. _

_"Fine" I whispered, swallowing thickly as he moved to give me the water that was in his hand and I pushed at the mattress underneath me to sit up. Once I did, I took the glass of water, smelling it first to make sure it was water before taking a few large sips. My eyes stayed on him as the cold water quenched my thirst._

_"You're lucky you found this farm when ya did. You would have bled out if you'd waited any longer" He said to me as his hands moved over the bandage on my leg. I watched his fingers, making sure he had no weapons on him and he didn't. "You've been asleep off and on the past few days; still looks like you'll need a few more days in bed before you can hop back on this leg… if you don't mind me askin', what happened?" _

_I sipped the rest of the water down and handed the empty cup back to him, and he took it but placed it down on the side table. He was waiting for me to answer his question. How was I supposed to explain this without him judging me, thinking I was some thief? But these were the times that we lived in, we needed to do anything to survive. _

_"I was in a department store in town… some guy pulled a gun on me an' then a friend of his cut me…" I bit down on my bottom lip, searching around for my jeans that had m gun and knifes, and my bag. "Where are my things?" I asked him and he sat down on a chair by the bed._

_"My daughter Maggie washed your clothes for you" My jaw tensed as I kept my eyes on him._

_"No, where's my bag and belt?" _

_"I don't allow guns in the house, so they're outside with your motorcycle" he said sternly, as if I was one of his daughters. I rolled my eyes and leaned back against the pillows. _

_"What's your name?" He asked after a few minutes of silence. _

_"Melanie, and yours?" I turned my head towards him again, looking at him again. He seemed harmless._

_"Hershel Greene" I nodded and looked down at my hands which had been cleaned and bandaged. _

_"Are you a doctor or something? Is it just your daughter that you live here with?" I asked both questions now so I didn't have to later on._

_"I am a doctor; you came to the right farm. And no, I have two daughters, Maggie and Beth and Beth's boyfriend Jimmy, and family friends who were neighbors Otis and Patricia. Patricia is a nurse; she was helping me dress your wounds" He explained as he told me the names of the people he lived with here. He had a group, he had a family here. "Were you traveling alone?" He asked and I glanced back over to him and looked down, nodding._

_"I was tryin' to find my brother… I think he's dead. I been all over Georgia this past half year and nothing has turned up" I said to him quietly and I felt his hand come down on my arm and I flinched at his warm touch, he noticed so he pulled his hand away._

_"I'm sorry…" I whispered, apologizing to this man who had helped me survive. "I haven't been around much people, and the people who I have come across haven't been too kind…" I traced my index finger over the long scar against my forearm. I got this one from a knife wound too, but it wasn't deep, it just left a scar. _

_"I can see that. Patricia stitched up the wound on your shoulder and your neck. I stitched up your leg." _

_"Thank you" I whispered and he nodded, smiling gently and then he stood up._

_"Maggie is makin' dinner right now, would you like some?" I swallowed hard, my sunken stomach growling which answered his question, but I nodded anyway._

_"If ya don't mind, that'd be great… I've been living off animals for the past 3 months and I'm not a great hunter…" He nodded and walked out of the door to leave me by myself. He was a nice man, and he had daughters. No. I said to myself, I couldn't trust anyone. I made that mistake too much in the past and this is where it landed me. I was a cripple because I let my guard down. _

_"Here you go" I heard as a girl walked in with a bowl for me. I could feel my stomach clench in anticipation for the warm food. "I'm Beth." She introduced herself as she handed me the bowl and I put it down on my lap over the blanket because it was too warm against my cold hands._

_"Melanie" I said and looked back up at her, she was young, 15 maybe? "Thank you" She nodded at me as I picked up the fork and looked down at the mac and cheese. Mac and cheese! Oh, I thought I'd never see this again. I took a large bite from the fork, not caring that it burnt the inside of my mouth. Beth stood there watching me and I turned my head to look at her, my eyebrows rising._

_"My daddy said not to stare, I'm sorry!" She apologized quickly and started to walk out but I said "Stop, wait…" She did and turned around to face me._

_"It's alright; I know I look a little screwed up…" I touched the side of my face; it had been dragged in the rocks on the road when my bike had wiped out. _

_"Daddy said they weren't gonna scar, that's a good thing though" she said and I nodded at her, smiling gently. "I should go back to dinner, if you need anything just call out." I nodded again, smiling as she left and I dug into the warm food._

I woke up hearing a motorcycle drive by my tent and then it cut off. More people, I didn't want more people. Turning over on the bed, I sat up and stood slowly. Pulling off the dirty jeans I fell asleep in, I pulled on new black jeans that were tight but it was easier to move around in them. Pulling off my flannel, I pulled on a loose t shirt and unzipped my tent after pulling my leather belt around my waist tightly with the weapons. Checking the clip, I zipped the tent back up and slid the gun into the back of my jeans. This was one of the main reasons that I didn't live in the house, Hershel said no guns. Meaning that there would be no way in defending myself or the rest of the family if one of those walkers came at us.

I saw them all gathered up along the front steps, and I glanced down at my watch and sighed, I had slept later than I wanted. Pushing myself up the small incline, I stepped next to Shane and looked over his clothes and shook my head lightly. He was wearing Otis' clothes, overalls and a big flannel underneath, he looked like a kid in his father's clothes.

Glancing around at the new comers from Rick's group, a blonde, a gray, short haired woman, an older man, white hair on his head and his face, he wore one of those ridiculous Hawaiian shirts over a dirty white wife beater and then a guy, short dirty blonde hair, dirty face and arms and he wore a leather black vest over a sleeveless flannel. He must have been the guy who drove the motorcycle. He caught me looking at him and I turned my gaze away to look beyond him at the big, white trailer and then the bike, then the newish car. There were too many people here, I thought to myself once again.

Rick came over to me after they had spoken for a while, I wasn't really paying much attention except for when Hershel said they were having a small memorial for Otis in an hour or two. It took me a minute to acknowledge his presence.

"Yeah?" I asked, wiping dirt off of my new boots as I sat down on the steps of the porch. He sat down next to me and he sighed deeply, looking me over.

"You ran off last night before we could talk. What happened here?" He asked and moved his hand up and touched the side of my neck where there was a thinly lined scar. He pulled his hand away and I glanced over at him, putting my hands down on my thighs and stood up. I turned towards him now and brushed my fingers back through my wavy hair that I had let loose when I woke up.

"Ran into a few problems when I was on my own" I muttered and looked at him and he looked me over, taking in the scars on my upper arm and down at my hands and my forearm. There had been a few times when knifes had been an issue with me and other people. Hands sliced, forearms cut open, bullet grazes against my upper arm which resulted in a scar as well. Battle wounds, is what Jimmy called them.

"I can see that" He said and stood up in front of me and I took a step back, he noticed and his eyes narrowed just a bit. "I'm not gonna hurt you, none of these people are from my camp either. I don't know what happened to you out there but I know it was enough for ya to not want to be around anyone" I tensed my jaw and rolled my eyes.

"Who told you?" I asked him bitterly "Hershel, or no wait… Beth?" I glanced around and found Beth putting stones up into a wheel barrel with a few others.

"Hershel gave me the run down last night, on what you told him, the very small list of what happened. Though I'm sure just by the looks of you much more happened, am I right?" I glanced up at him, my hand coming to rest on my knife in my leather belt.

"I've been here for a little over 2 months, I survived, didn't I?" I raised my eyebrows up at him and he shook his head at me.

"This world can change us sis, and I can see that it's changed you. You weren't like this before-"

"No, I wasn't like this before Rick. I was a college graduate, top of my class, then the world went to shit and I had to survive on my own. I had to deal with shit that I thought I'd never have to in my life, kill people Rick. No, I believe that wasn't like me before." I turned to walk away from him but he grabbed my arm and turned me around sharply. Before he could hold me there though, I slapped him across the face hard, and his hands instantly fell from my arms to hold onto the side of his face red face.

"Don't touch me, I'm surprised Hershel didn't tell you I don't take kindly to people putting their hands on me" I spat at him and walked away to go help Beth with the stones. I was bitter; I could admit that to myself. He had been out there this whole time, right under my nose, and I had been there by myself. He probably didn't even care to look for me, probably thought I was dead when I was out there every day trying to find them all.

"You alright?" Beth asked as I came up and started to put the stones into the wheel barrel.

"Fine" I muttered even though I wasn't fine, my heart was racing enough to give me a heart attack and my eyes were burning indicating that I just wanted to cry.

I wheeled the barrel over to the spot under a tree where they wanted to do the memorial. I stood there by Beth and Patricia as we all placed stones in a pile shaped as a circle for Otis. Hershel spoke words from the bible and then he asked Shane to say a few words, considering he was with him last. When he spoke, I looked around at the people in the half circle, where they really believing him? I had been with Otis out hunting before with walkers around; I told him if he ever got into a bad situation like he had last night, to just run for safety and never get left behind. Plus Otis wasn't the one to sacrifice himself for someone he didn't know, and Otis didn't know Shane one bit.

They were starting a search party for a girl that had gone missing in the woods, Carol's 12 year old daughter. I still weighed it in my head if I should help out or not. Carol hadn't come up to me asking me to help out, she just introduced herself. Chewing the granola bar in my hand, I tossed the wrapper into the trash and walked back outside and jogged down the steps and back onto the grass. It was a little girl, I thought, alone in those woods. I shuddered, remembering how scared I was when I was out on my own in the woods with nothing to eat and no place to run to. If I was scared, she had to be terrified. She was probably holding out in one of the houses in the back woods, if she was smart she would have stayed there.

Maggie had a map out on the hood of the truck and I glanced around to find Carol. I spotted her walking up the steps into the white trailer and I jogged over, swallowing the rest of my granola along the way. Tapping my hand against the door before going in, I heard her call out "Come in!" I stepped up the stairs and into the small RV and she looked over at me and smiled gently "Can I help you?"

"Do you have a photo of your girl, Sophia was it?" She nodded and smiled "Why?" She asked as she stood and went into the back and I stayed where I was.

"I know these woods better than anyone here, thought I'd get a head start on finding her for you if ya didn't mind…" She had a photo in her hand and handed it to me carefully. I looked the girl over, she was thin, short dirty blonde/brown hair.

"You don't have to, you aren't even in our group, you don't know her" She started to explain but I shook my head at her and handed her the photo back and she held it against her chest.

"Like I said, I know these woods better than anyone 'round. Plus if you're stayin' here, means that you're part of my group as well. I'll be back before sundown hopefully with some news" I said to her as I turned around and walked down the steps and back onto the dirt. Fixing the knives I had in my leather belt, I walked over to the truck and looked down at the guns on the map and raised my eyebrows. Must have given them the speech about no guns. I smirked, thankful that Hershel trusted me with mine in my tent. I glanced over at Rick as they dispatched into different groups or just walked away. Hershel turned around towards me and smiled gently.

"Looks as if people are going to be moving in near you" I sighed and my shoulders slumped a bit. I wasn't mad at him for telling Rick about what had happened to me out there, I could never be mad at Hershel for anything.

"I'm gonna go out to look for the little girl, I think I know of a few places she could be hiding" He nodded and said "Just be careful, I have Maggie going into town for more medicine with the boy there…" He pointed to Glenn and I nodded, he was harmless.

"Tell her that it was fine there last night, don't know 'bout today though" He nodded and patted my back softly before walking away to talk to her and I walked back to my tent and grabbed another clip and put it into my back pocket. Pulling my hair up into a braid again, it was just easier to work with a braid than a bun because buns always fell out of my hair when I was running or jogging.

Walking out into the woods and down the path, I pulled out my long bladed knife as I slowly walked, being cautious of walkers that tended to just hang out in the back woods. I knifed down three by the time I pushed my way through the trees and into the clearing of the abandoned house. It was the same as I remembered gray and dull. Walking up the steps, I pulled out my gun after putting my knife back into place on my belt and pushed the door open wide, holding the gun out in front of me as I walked down the hallway, glancing from side to side into the front rooms and kitchen.

"Sophia?" I called out in a whisper, and walked up the steps but found no one. Hearing the downstairs floors creek, I pulled up my gun in front of me again and slid against the wall by the stairs. Walker must have been trailing me. I sighed and walked down the stairs, crouching down a bit but didn't see anyone in the hallway. Raising my eyebrows, I walked down the stairs more quietly and turned the corner, finger on the trigger but no one was there.

I heard a squeaking noise like doors opening from the kitchen area and I walked back through the hallway slowly, foot over foot and then the floor boards creaked too loud so I threw myself against the side wall to stay out of sight. Taking in a deep breath, I quickly turned the corner and pointed the gun at the man whose back was facing me.

"Hold it" I said loudly and he stopped walking to the side door that leads outside into the back. "Put the crossbow down" I said to him and I saw his hand muscles tight around it as he lowered it and then turned quickly, and pointed it at me. I squeezed the trigger but then stopped, staring at him and letting out a breath.

"Ya asshole, you just almost got shot in the head."


	5. Chapter 5

**The language is going to be getting a bit nasty from here on out, so I'm bumping this up to a Mature story. Here's Chapter 5! You know what to do, Read and Review! Hope you all enjoy :) xo**

* * *

I put the gun down by my side and shook my head at him; he put the crossbow down slowly, looking me over skeptically.

"What ya doin' out here anyways, wavin' a gun 'round and shit" He spat at me in his deep southern tone. I looked down at his crossbow and then back at his dirty, sweaty face.

"I'm lookin' for the girl, I know these woods better than anyone" I said to him, taking in a deep breath before noticed the pantry door open with a pillow and blanket down on the ground. It was big enough for Sophia to crawl into and hide, he saw it first though.

"Doesn't seem ya looked hard enough" he said to me, a smirk spreading on his face and I rolled my eyes at him. Turning around, I walked out of the front door because I was annoyed by his sudden pride in being better hunter than I was.

"Sophia?!" I called out, looking around at the open area. She had been here, but not anymore. She could have been on the other side of the woods by now.

"Who are ya anyway girl?" He asked me, but I ignored the question and jogged into the woods "Fine, be a bitch" He called out to me in his rough voice, but like before I ignored him. Heading into the woods, I slowed down to a walk, pushing my gun back into the back of my jeans and pulling out my long bladed knife. He stayed at least 10 feet behind me, crossbow raised as he looked around at the area.

"Rick ya brother? Saw ya smack him pretty damn good today" he commented lowly from behind me and I jumped, turning around to face him. There was no way I was going to make it over to the other side of the woods by now if I wanted to be back by sundown, I just had to start at dawn tomorrow.

"Stop askin' me questions and stop followin' me ya twit" I said to him sternly, then turned around and started to make my way back to the farm.

"Bitch" He said at me, and I widened my eyes, trying to ignore him. I couldn't kill him, people would be mad back at camp, Rick would be mad. Hershel said no killing humans… he didn't know about the humans I have killed just to survive though. What he didn't know wasn't going to kill him.

Daryl watched with curious eyes as the girl stepped over into her tent and closed it back up securely. What the hell was her deal anyway? All he knew was that she was too hot to be waving around that gun and have that many knives on her waist. He had to break the news to Carol because it didn't look like this chick was. Looked like she'd been through hell though, trying to get to this farm and away from the city that had still been overthrown by walkers. He just hopped that Merle was still out there, but that was the furthest thought from his head because he just kept thinking about that girl.

Her clothes were too skin tight, he thought, that was going to be an issue with him. He could already feel the tightness in his head; he didn't need no tightening in his jeans. That's what she was, a tease. Rick's lil sister? They didn't look alike. He'd have to ask Rick about it to get the truth, didn't seem she was up to telling him anything. Why the hell was he so damn concerned about this girl? He shook his head and walked up the steps of the run down RV and broke the news to Carol.

After an hour or two in my tent, of just thinking about how that guy with the crossbow could have been shot today by my hand, I finally had enough and got out of the tent to clear my head. I couldn't deal with this shit, the task at hand was finding that small girl for Carol, and that was the only task. There was no getting to know the newbies, no making friends. Because making friends wasn't my thing anymore, getting to know someone that was probably gonna end up dead, that wasn't my thing. The less emotional connection I had with those people, the better it was to do my work and focus.

There was only one person that I could have an emotional connection with on this farm, and he was lying in a bed in the house. Heading up the stairs, I pushed the blonde pieces of hair back behind my ear and out of my eyes before entering the house. I could hear Rick in there talking to him, but it was easy to ignore him and just talk to Carl.

"Hey bud" I said as I entered the room and Carl looked over at me and a wide smile broke out on his pale face.

"Aunt Mel, dad just told me that you were alive" I smiled and went up to the bed, my fingers coming out of the small fist to brush back his brown hair from his forehead. I could remember the first time I saw him in the hospital, I was only 12 but I still remembered it clearly. The age difference between Rick and I had always been an issue to everyone we met. 15 years is a lot between brother and sister, or half brother and sister. His mom gave birth to him when she was 17, then divorced her husband when Rick was 10, met my dad a few years after and they had me when she was 32, my dad was 40.

"Yeah I'm alive bud, how ya feeling? Gave everyone a scare…" He nodded and smiled, "I feel fine, sore but fine" He said up to me and I glanced over towards Rick, my jaw tensing as I sat down on the edge of the bed by his legs.

"You're gonna be fine though, Hershel took good care of ya and I'm sure you'll be up and runnin' around in a few days" I told him and he was smiling, holding onto my hand, my thumb rubbed against the back of his small hand.

"I wouldn't say runnin'" Rick said, sitting up in his chair and I pulled my hand away from Carl's and stood up.

"You need anything?" Carl shook his head and I glanced back over to Rick, "I'm gonna be outside, like to talk to ya if you don't mind. Sure Carl needs some more rest anyway" Rick nodded and patted Carl on the arm as I looked down at him.

"I'll see you tomorrow Bud, get some sleep." I leaned down and kissed the top of his head before walking out of the door and out the front door, watching the newbies setting up their tents and camp. It was sort of near the trees, a few yards away from my tent. It wouldn't be too much of a bother, as long as they didn't stay up too late being drunken fools. We shouldn't have a problem.

Turning my head after sitting down on one of the rocker chairs on the porch, Rick came over and leaned up against the banister, not looking at me, but looking out at the camp and large fields of the farm.

"I apologize for hittin' ya…" I said, crossing my arms over my chest as I looked at his back, then past him at the dusk sky.

"I get it; I shouldn't put my hands on you, and grab ya like I did. But you gotta be honest sis, what happened out there? Shane said he went back to your dads, and he said that he was waitin' for you. He was so hell bent on havin' you there before he left, what happened?" He asked, sitting down, crossing his arms over his chest while he sat there on the white sill of the porch, staring at me.

"I told ya, I killed him. There was no other choice but to kill him" I swallowed hard, glancing down at my hands as I started to pick the dirt from under my nails.

"I know that part. What happened after, where'd you go?" He asked, his eyes looking me over, then narrowing as he took in the scars on my hands while they moved around together.

"Got in my car, drove through the city… ended up bein' a coward and stayed in my car for two weeks before gettin' the courage to travel again. Was on my own for 2 months, and out on a run one night… got jacked of my car and everything I had in it. Had to make it work the best I could, about a month later I found a bike with gas in it, and lived off my lack of huntin' skills until 2 months ago…" I bit down on my bottom lip and put my hands down on my thighs and pushed myself to stand.

"Those people that jacked your car, you killed?" He asked and I glanced at him and shook my head, frowning at the corner of my lips, shaking my head again as the thoughts came up into my head. It was bad enough I had dreamed about it, now I had to think about it too.

"No, two guys, the night I came here. Resulted in this…" I motioned to the side of my neck and felt the ache in my knee. It had taken weeks before I could walk on it properly again, and in that time I had gotten to know the Greene's family. "And another nasty scar behind my knee…" I wasn't gonna tell him I was almost dead by the time Otis picked me up off that ground by the gate and brought me into the house.

"It had to be bad in order to come here, seek out other people when all people did was hurt you" He said and I nodded at him, not going further on the subject.

"I shot both men, and left. Wiped out on my bike and got here in time. It's not the Hilton, but it was a safe place, secluded place to rest up. By the time I could run again on my leg, I got too attached to these people and their lives… Hershel doesn't allow weapons on his property, why do ya think I have a tent out by the far trees?" He nodded, taking in my words and looking down at my knife belt.

"So you protect this farm, you're the hunter here." I nodded at his words, pushing my hands into my front pockets.

"You could say that, I do what I gotta, plus it beats living out there by myself again…" I looked out past the farm, into the woods, into the scary unknown and all I could think about was Sophia. How terrified she must be in the pitch darkness of the forest. I heard him sigh deeply, making another annoying noise as he stood up straight and wiped his hand over his scruffy cheeks.

"I hate to ask this and I know I'm gonna hate the answer even more… but why don't ya want people touchin' you?" I glanced at him, my throat tightening before I could even let out a sound. Taking a moment to gather my thoughts, I cleared my throat,and shrugged.

"I just don't Rick… seen too much out there, can't trust anyone" I told him honestly as I looked back out as people moved along the farm. "I'm sure ya dealt with shit out there that you thought you'd never have to, just how life is now. It sucks." I bit back the anger in my tone before it could really show through. I wasn't going to tell him the complete truth. My brother didn't need to know what really happened; he didn't need that weighing on his mind as well as Carl and whatever mess was going on with Lori.

"I'm gonna head to bed, get a head start on searching for Sophia in the mornin'…" I trailed off, shuffling on my feet. I felt like a 12 year old girl compared to him. He still gave off that authority figure presence, even now on the brink of hell. He was still a Sheriff no matter where he went, he was that person who took control over situations, got things done.

"Thanks for openin' up a bit; I know it's not something you do now. I appreciate it" He made no move to touch me, or give me a brotherly hug. He just stood there, telling me from his heart that he liked talking to me like this again, even if I wasn't really that girl anymore that he grew up knowing and babysitting. I nodded at him, and then walked down the steps and past the newbies camp before opening up my tent and stepping inside.

* * *

I headed out just as the first sun stream broke through the horizon. As I gripped the leather handlebars, I relished in the feel of the cool wind as it blew across my face, making my high pony tail fly behind me. This used to be a rush for me. I used to get this clenching anxious feeling in my chest and in the pit of my stomach, but now I couldn't feel it. Truth be told, nothing gave me that thrill anymore. Not even killing walkers did that for me. In the simplest terms, nothing got me off. I couldn't be satisfied.

Pulling off onto the side of the road, I pushed the bike into the trees and kicked the stand down before pulling out my knife. My head turned to my right, then my left to scout out the area that I was in. There was another abandoned house near here that I wanted to check out first before going into the deep woods to search for Sophia. If people at the farm were looking for her today as well, it wouldn't interfere with my search due to being 15 miles from the farm. They wouldn't come out this far on foot with the fear of not being back in time before the dark spread over the forest floor.

Pulling out the bag I packed just in case I did find her, I slid it up onto my shoulders and onto my back. "Please be out there sweetie" I whispered, my eyes casting around the woods and finally I started to walk through, keeping my ears perk up and clear for any footfalls or any movement. All I could think about was her out here; it had been a few days since she went missing and there were worse things than just walkers finding her alone and unarmed. Shaking my head, I pushed through the clearing and through the bushes until I was standing a few feet away from a downright ugly house. The windows had been smashed in since the last time I stumbled upon it, and there was a dead walker near the front steps. Someone had been here, but there was no indication that anyone was here now.

"Sophia?!" I called out, pulling my gun from the back of my jeans and pointing it out in front of me.

"Sophia, if you're in there just yell. I'll come find ya!" I yelled again, keeping my eyes on the front door. I waited another minute before I started to move again, stepping over the walker who had a bullet wound in his forehead… or was that an arrow wound? Shrugging, I walked into the house and slid up against the side wall. Calling out for her again, but there were no sounds that came back to me. No Walker movements, no human movements. This place was empty, like it had been before. Just for my own peace of mind, I walked through each room, no walkers, and no indication of a human being here. Dust covered most of the home anyway, over the tables and counters, and to the turned over beds upstairs. Heading back outside, I walked back into the woods after calling out for her once again.

Wiping my arm against my sweating forehead, I pulled out the warm water body from my bag and took long sips and then tossed it back in. In a crouched position, I zipped the back pack closed and slid it back onto my arms and stood up. Where else could she be?

Think.

Think.

Before I could take a step, I saw fast movement from the corner of my eye and I got down on my knee, crouching with my hand on my gun and my other holding tightly to a knife. But I didn't need either of them. I stood up slowly and I pushed my gun into the back of my jeans.

"Hey girl!" The horse slowed down to a stop after hearing my voice, it was one of Hershel's. The white rope was still there up on the saddle, which told me that someone had been riding her… but where was that person now? Jogging over to her, I looked her over, patting my hand down against her mane. I was looking for bites or scratches but didn't see any. This was that nervous horse, who in their right mind would take her out in the woods? "It's alright girl" I whispered, continuing to pat against her mane. There was no way she just ran off from the farm, Hershel kept them in the gated fields.

Grabbing onto the saddle, I pulled myself up and threw my leg over her back before taking the rope and holding onto it. I patted my hand against her side as she started to move in the opposite direction of where she was running from. I held my gun in one hand against my thigh and the other holding onto the rope as she galloped slowly through the woods while I kept glancing from side to side trying to find the owner who took her out.

The day had been pretty clear, no walker's around that I could spot and no walker's that could spot me high up on this horse. I had been riding her for an hour and nothing so far. Sometimes I wish horses just knew how to speak, it would be a hell of a lot easier to just ask the damn horse who was riding her before me. But that's when groaning came to my ears and I quickly pulled at the horses rope in which she stopped her movements and I hopped off of her, wrapping the rope around a tree to keep her there. I pulled my long bladed knife out, walking along the small inclined hill of trees, my eyes going from left to right.

Heavy breathing is what I heard next, and I turned around to make sure a walker didn't sneak up on me but there was no one there. Then I heard snapping, of branches? Walking to the edge of the cliff, I looked down at the two dead walkers with raised eyebrows. I could hear that groaning again, it was muffled in pain. Swallowing hard, I took another step forward until my toes were off the edge and looked down the hill. Who the hell was that climbing up the side? I couldn't see his face but I could see the crossbow hanging from his shoulder.

It was that stupid man from yesterday that I almost shot. He really got himself into bad situations didn't he? It looked like he was bleeding from his head and something was wrapped around his stomach, over his beat up gray tank top. Taking a step back, I kneeled down and pulled the rope I put in my bag out and tossed the bag to the side.

"Grab this" I called down to him, he was already half way up, and it wouldn't be too bad of a climb for him with some help. He looked up and grunted at me. Why the hell was he grunting at me, I was trying to help him, wasn't I? "Take it or leave it, I found ya damn horse" I said to him, as I tossed one edge of the rope down to him and it banged against his head, I couldn't help but smirk, holding in a laugh. Wrapping and tying the rope tight around the bent tree behind me a few feet so it was secure, I tugged on the rope and held onto it while keeping my back against the tree to help him up with the strength I had. "Go ahead, I gotchu!" I called to him, not being able to see if he was actually trying to use the rope of not until I felt a large tug and my back hit the tree hard.

I let out a small whine of protest as I held onto the rope tighter and he pulled himself up. Thankfully the tree was taking more of the strength than me, because I wouldn't be able to pull him up on my own with him tugging like this.

"Ya ain't got shit" He yelled up to me, hearing the pain in his southern voice, I couldn't help but grimace. He was stubborn, and hard headed, I could already tell by the way he spoke.

"Just pull your damn self-up, I ain't no hulk!" I yelled back at him, putting my head back against the tree, wrapping my hands around the rope again that was cutting into my palms. Biting my bottom lip, I took in an uneasy breath and felt no weight on the rope but heard his grunting louder. Unraveling my hands, I jogged over to him as he tried to pull himself up by just the grass and roots on the edge. My burning hands flinched just thinking about touching him and helping him up. He held out his arm for me to take and I tensed. Crouching down onto my knees, I wrapped my hands around his hand and pulled, pushing myself back as he kicked his feet against the edged roots and finally he was up on the flat surface and I let his hand go, wiping my hand down against my jeans.

He rolled over and I noticed walker's ears on a string necklace that was around his neck and I choked on the vomit that was about to come up. He was a fucked up son of a bitch, not just an unlucky one. "Get up" I said to him but he didn't move. Letting out a strangling noise, I pressed my fingers to the side of his throat and he shot his hand out and they wrapped around my wrist tight.

"Ow, let go. I'm trying to help ya!" I yelled at him and kicked him in the side and he groaned out loudly, letting my arm go. Rubbing against my wrist, I narrowed my eyes down at him. "Would they hate me if I just left ya here?" I asked him, looking him over. He was a mess, wound on his side and blood on his chin and upper lip, as well as on the side of his forehead. Yeah, they'd hate me. Sighing deeply, I grabbed my bag and pulled it over my shoulders and onto my back before wrapping my hands around his forearms trying to pull him up.

"C'mon a lil help would be great buddy" I growled at him as he tried to push himself to his feet and when he stood up, I wrapped his arm around my shoulders to lean on me. We just needed to get back to the horse… no way he wouldn't be able to climb up. Searching around with my eyes as I stayed in place holding his weight against me, I thought about what to do. The bike would be the only way to get him back before darkness. Get us back before the monsters came out.

"Alright, ya gonna have to help me a bit. I ain't that strong" I struggled to keep him up and he started to help out, not speaking except for a few curses under his breath while we stumbled through the forest. I let the horse go about a mile back, which meant a half hour ago. My back ached, he was too damn heavy.

"What's ya name?" He mumbled an hour later, we just passed the abandoned house, we were almost there. Thank god.

"Melanie" I said to him, not caring that he was just trying to start small talk. Continuing to walk with him, he took more of his weight now but his arm was still around my shoulders because he was stumbling, my arm wrapped tightly around his waist while my hand pressed to the wound on his back over his thin shirt.

"Daryl" He whispered under his breath, telling me his name and I nodded silently and saw my bike where I had left it but there were walkers. Stopping, I pulled out my gun and pulled the trigger and hit both of them in the head quickly as Daryl watched.

"Fuckin' leeches" I muttered and leaned his back up against a tree before going to my bike and putting my bag on the handle bars, then pushed it onto the pavement of the road and put the keys into the ignition and started her up. Jogging back to him, I grabbed his arms and held onto him as we got to the bike and I helped him pull his leg over and he sat down on the back as I sat down in front of me.

Just don't think about it; don't think about any of it. You're doing well, just get rid of the thoughts. He leaned his chest against my back and I tensed, pushing the kickstand back into place.

"Ya gotta hold onto me tight, you'll fall off if ya don't" I said to him and I felt his arms come around my thin waist and wrap tight together, holding onto me. I nodded to myself, pushing the thoughts away again before pushing my foot off the ground and starting to drive down the middle of the rode.

"Stop thinkin' about it" I whispered to myself as we drove, feeling his forehead press against my shoulder. "You're helpin' him, it's nothing like that, you're okay" I whispered to calm myself down but it wasn't really helping all that much as my mind kept having flashes of hands on my skin. Rough hands that were slapping me, cutting into me, holding me down.

I could feel the painful tears in my eyes as I turned the corner and I heard him groan loudly against my back from the movement of the bike. The farm came into view and they had left the gate open once more cars were here. People were at the newbie tents, the farm, in the fields and on the porch.

"HERSHEL!" I screamed out and a few people turned their heads as the bike came to a skidding stop on the dirt. Shutting the bike off, I left the keys and pulled his arms off of my waist, hopping off as Rick and Shane came running over.

"Is that Daryl?" I heard someone say from behind me, it wasn't a voice I recognized. Rick looked up at me as they helped Daryl off the back of my bike and into the house; Hershel was going up after them into the house, pushing his sleeves up. Letting out a deep breath, I wiped my bloody and dirty hands against my mixed sweat and tearing face.

"Are you alright?" I heard from the side of me and I nodded, putting my hand against the bike to hold myself up for a moment to grasp my bearings. The world wouldn't stop spinning for a few seconds, and I thought I was going to pass out. Thankfully I didn't, and I pushed myself away from the bike and across the field into the house.

"How's he doin'?" I asked Rick who was coming out of the back room and he looked me over.

"Are you alright?" I nodded, not caring about me right now because I wasn't the one that fell down a cliff.

"He's gonna be fine, Hershel's stitching him up and giving him pain medication. He should be out for a while... You're bleeding" He told me and I looked down at myself, and shook my head.

"It's not my blood" But I could feel my palms burning now and I had definitely roughed those up. Walking into the kitchen, I washed my hands, seeing that the rope had left a few scratches, but they'd heal. Grabbing a towel, I patted my hands down and someone came up to my side.

"Come outside, I'll help you clean up…" It was Lori, and it wasn't her asking me, it was her telling me. Nodding my head slowly, she took my forearm gently as we walked outside to her camp. Sitting down on a log, I looked down at my clothes which were ruined. Dirt covered and soaked my knees, blood splats and dirt spots covered my arms and my white t shirt from his arms being wrapped there.

"Here" She handed me a water bottle and I took large sips from it and put it down on the ground by my thigh. She had taken a wet towel and started to wipe against my arms from the dirt and blood, and then my forehead and cheeks, down my neck. She paused, her eyes on the scar there. Why was it that scar that had people wondering? I had worse scars on my thighs than that one.

"Daryl's gonna be alright" She said to me and I nodded again, taking in deep, even breaths. I couldn't believe that I was actually pondering the thought of just leaving him there to defend himself; the dusk had already started to creep onto the farm. He would have been walker meat. I was so selfish; I really would have just left him there to survive on my own and make it back here before dark.

"I was gonna leave him" I whispered to myself, almost forgetting that Lori was still there, wrapping white gauze around my hands.

"You didn't leave him though, and he's gonna be just fine" She tried to make this right in my head, but it wasn't right. It wasn't the humane thing to do. Those thoughts of leaving him should have never entered my mind. He was a defenseless human being that needed my help and only my help so he could survive.

"Melanie" She whispered to me lowly and I glanced at her now instead of my hands. "You saved his life. Daryl gets under people's skin sometimes and it's alright that you thought that. You brought him back, you saved him" She repeated to me and it sunk in slowly. He was gonna be alright, simple as that.

"Now I have to go back and help with settin' up dinner, why don't you get cleaned up and meet us in the kitchen?" She said to me and I nodded quietly. She stood up and walked away as I grabbed the dirty towel and continued to wipe against my arms and the sides of my neck while walking slowly back to my tent.

He was gonna be alright.


	6. Chapter 6

**Rated Mature for sexual situations/traumatic scenes so please be advised. Here's Chapter 6! R&R! xo**

* * *

It was safe to say that I didn't go back into the house to face any of them. I tried to avoid awkward situations the best I could and recently I've been on a great streak, no need in tarnishing that. Carol came by with a plate of food for me, told me that she went in to see Daryl and that he was awake acting like his old self. That was a good thing, right? She didn't seem too worried about it, so it had to. Pushing the empty plate off to the side and onto the table, I leaned back on the bed, looking up at the darkness of the tent once I put my lantern out. I could still feel his arms wrapped around me, my hands on his warm skin and it made me sick to my stomach. I wrapped an arm tight around my stomach and turned over onto my side to look at the flap that was securely zipped up and my eyes drifted a bit but I didn't fall asleep.

_The throbbing of pain at the back of my head was unbearable once I came too. The lead pipe had knocked me unconscious for a few hours. I knew this because while I saw stars when I blinked my eyes, it was indeed dark now. It had been 1pm when I was in that store, and now… I swallowed the thick lump in my throat, moving my hand up to touch the back of my head, feeling liquid, I was bleeding, but it had stopped somewhere during those hours I had been asleep. Even though my ears were ringing, I could hear whispering voices._

_"You do it before she starts tryin' to get out" a man said, but I couldn't see him. It was too dark, wherever I was. "You're such a pussy man" I heard a rough, low voice say and then I felt a hand against my throat and I moved my hands to try and get him off but my arms were failing to do so. What was going on? His grip was far too tight on my throat, making me wince and groan as he pulled me to stand. He was much taller than me, maybe by 7 inches but I still couldn't see his face. "Hey there pretty girl" He said and I felt his mouth press against mine and I pushed my hands out against his hard chest, but my strength was diminished to nothing. I bit down on his tongue once it invaded my mouth and he pulled back, smacked me hard across the face and I fell against the chair and then tumbled over onto the hard concrete floor. _

_"Let me go, what did you give me?" I asked in a whisper, trying to push myself to crawl away but a hard, heavy boot came down on one of my hands and I whimpered in pain. "We gave you a heavy sedative" and that was the worst thing I could have heard. He could have told me that he was going to have walkers in here to eat me, but no, whatever he wanted from me, he wanted to drag it out. "Grab her arms" He said to someone else and I tried kicking at the new man and he groaned once I kicked him against his knee and I heard a small popping noise. He grabbed my wrists together and pulled them sharply behind my back and tied a thick rope around them, so that I couldn't budge them even if I tried. Rough hands grabbed me on either side of my neck and he pulled me up to stand again, my body wasn't working, wake up I begged myself as my eyes started to droop again. _

_I kicked my leg out and that caught him off guard and he grunted loudly but it wasn't hard enough so I tried again but the sudden sharp pain that hit my upper thigh that was apparently bare stopped me in place as I let out a loud scream as a newly sharp blade sliced against my skin. "You're gonna get another slice if ya don't stop" I felt something being stuffed into my mouth and I tried pushing at it with my tongue but he kept pushing it in until it wasn't even possible for me to push it out due to the tape he put against my mouth. I felt sharp, but cool steel around my ankles, hand cuffs. That's the last thing I felt before passing out in his arms._

_I woke up naked from the waist down, my shirt in tatters on my top half. The rag and tape were gone from my mouth, but forming words wasn't the first thing I wanted to do. I needed to get out of here now that I was feeling everything, and the pain was more intolerable than I could have imagined. My arms were stuck behind my back still and I opened up my hands, shaking my shoulders up and down to wiggle my small wrists through the rope. I was still on the ground, it was hard and cold. I had to be in some shed somewhere, it was the only logical answer because there were no windows. _

_"Uh, uh, uh. Not so fast pretty girl" I started to cry, trying to get the rope off of my wrists but his hand came down and pushed me down onto my back. "It wasn't as enjoyable with ya like a rag doll…" I felt sick to my stomach as I turned my head away from his face that came down against mine as he chuckled against my ear "I like it when my girls scream, so let me hear ya scream pretty girl" He said into my ear in a whisper, as if someone was in the shed with us watching. My bottom lip trembled as I tried to kick at him but my legs were still hand cuffed together. "Scream" He hissed now and I felt the blade slicing against my thigh again and I cried out a painful sob. "Good girl" He whispered, pulling me up by my sore waist until he had me on my knees and I tried pulling away but the knife he had cut into my thigh was pressed against the front of my throat, nearly digging into my skin. "Don't even think about it, there's nothing 'round here for miles. Walkers would get to ya before we would" He growled against my back as he positioned himself behind me, one of his rough hands going back to my hip as he thrusted himself into me. _

_My cheek was pressed against the cool concrete under me, my eyes fixated on the small dim of light that was coming in through under the shed's door as he finished behind me. I could hear the faint sounds of a belt and then I was pushed to lie on my side again. "Think she'll be alright for the day if we leave her here? Need to hunt, get food for the group" I heard, as my wrists tried to break free from the rope. I had been working on it for 4 days now and I had come close, but you know what that resulted in. I spotted my bag of things, my jeans across the shed in a dark corner last night. It seemed as if it was so far away last night, but now it was so close to my grasp. "She can't move, look at her. Let's go, it's gonna be daylight for a while, perfect time." The door opened, flooding in the light, but I knew better, that was dim light, 6 o'clock light. The door shut with no latch sound, no lock. They hadn't been doing that since they brought me here because they had beaten the shit out of me and I would pass out before they left for the night._

_Pushing my arm down into the rope, I pulled it back and it slid out. I suppressed back the groan as I moved my sore arms back into their right position, and then pushed myself up to sit. Glancing down at my dried up bloody right thigh, I crawled towards my bag, pulling on the jeans slowly and carefully just in case I bumped into anything. I was thankful that they had taken the hand cuffs off of my ankles; apparently they needed it for someone else outside of these four walls. Dumb fucks didn't even grab my guns or knives? How stupid were these monsters? Pulling out a clean thermal shirt from my bag, I pulled it on and then grabbed onto the side ledge of the shed and pulled myself to stand. Leaning my bruised back against the wooden wall, I took in deep breaths as I checked the ammo in my gun. 3 rounds, meaning I couldn't miss. Pulling out my knife, I stayed there after pushing my feet into my black boots. I waited._

_It was just after dark when the door started to move and I opened my eyes, staring at the door and lifting my hands. Pistol in one, knife in the other "Where the fuck is she?" One of them said in an angry tone, then he walked inside and I shot at his head and he dropped. Killing a human being, it wasn't at the top of my list of things I wanted to do but it needed to be done. These men who took their turns with me, they weren't human's. They were the monsters. There were no sounds except for a sickening gurgling noise coming from the dead man on the ground in the doorway._

_"Just give it up, we have more weapons than you do pretty girl" One of them called out from just beyond the door._

_Pretty girl. I let out a snarl as I ran, stepping on the dead guy on the floor and to outside. They had knives; knives weren't shit when it came to a gun and a top student in defense classes. I shot one in the chest and he stumbled back, falling onto his knees and as one of them tried to grab me, I shot him in the side of the neck and he dropped, making that gurgling noise that turned my stomach. I tossed the gun to the ground, knowing there weren't any bullets left and pulled at the other knife in my waist band. Just two more, I thought. Two more and then freedom. _

_They didn't come near me though; they actually were taking steps away from me. They were afraid of me. My grip tightened on the handles of the knives as I took a step forward and both of them dropped whatever weapon they had in their hands, putting their hands up. "Truce, truce please we have families back at the camp" One of them begged me but I wasn't hearing him because he couldn't be serious. He didn't stop when I begged, when I screamed at him to just kill me. I lifted my right arm up, keeping my eyes on them both. Then I threw the knife as hard as I could and it hit directly into the quiet one's head and he dropped. _

_"You fucked with the wrong girl" I breathed lowly into the chilly air. "You want to fuckin' beg, go ahead, I dare you." I told him as his knees dropped down onto the mud under him. _

_"I'm sorry, okay? Bobby made me grab you. I didn't touch you I fucking swear! I have a family; if I didn't help out they weren't going to feed my wife and son!" He yelled at me, and I could hear the honesty in his fearful voice. I took a few more steps forward, limping on my weak leg now from the lack of blood. _

_"You didn't stop to think; hey this girl probably has a fuckin' family too? Maybe we shouldn't rape and torture a girl?!" I yelled at him, my hand gripping the handle tighter until my olive skinned knuckles were white. _

_"I didn't touch you, I swear, please, don't-" _

_But his words fell on deaf ears._

Someone was shaking me, and shaking me hard as I woke up and all I could see was a man. I clenched my hand into a fist and punched him in the jaw and he stumbled back, holding onto his face. "Ya bitch, I'm tryin' fuckin' wake ya up. Ya screamin' ya damn head off. Everyone thought there were walkers or some shit" He growled at me and I pulled my hand back and pressed it to my sweating cold chest. I had fallen asleep.

"Sorry" I muttered, glancing up at him, he still had a line of blood coming from his forehead where stitches were but he looked fine other than a sore jaw now. He rubbed at it "Where'd ya learn to punch like that, damn" He muttered and I couldn't help but laugh, and yet it wasn't a happy laugh, it was a painful laugh. He looked at me curiously, as if I was crazy and I shook my head at him, putting a hand over my mouth to stop myself. It was light out, so I had slept through the night. It was strange, usually when I had that dream I woke myself up, this time I couldn't even get out of that nightmare.

I sat up and brushed down my shorts I had put on before I laid down last night and looked back up at him, feeling conscious that he was staring at me for the wrong reasons. "What do ya want anyway, why ya standin' there?"

He looked me over again, his eyes fixating on my upper right thigh full of thinly lined scars in rows and I slid my hand over it to cover them. "Get out" I said to him, standing up and he looked at my face now. He opened his mouth to say something but I pushed at his shoulder "Get out now" He didn't protest, didn't say a word, he walked out of the tent and I zipped it back up. Turning around, I wiped my forearm over my forehead and then pulled off the shorts and pulled on jeans. I let my hair go from the pony tail it was in as I finally got enough courage to face all these people who had been hearin' me scream.

Pulling down my tight tank top, I ignored the looks I was getting from the woman while they cleaned up around their tents. Ignoring it was better than telling them a lie. "You alright? Daryl said you punched him pretty hard for a girl…" A small laugh came out of me as I turned around towards Shane. He was in his usual attire, looking all authority driven and shit.

"Fine, just a nightmare. He was too close to me when I woke up, thought he was a walker" I said to him and Shane seemed to believe what I was spitting at him. "Do ya need something?" I asked him and he took a few steps towards me until he was about a foot away, pulling out a gun, he looked at me.

"Might need to talk to Carl, he was holdin' this" I nodded and looked down at the gun in his hand.

"Why was he holdin' it?" I asked in confusion as to why he was bringing it up to me.

"He wants to learn how to shoot it. Boy's only 12, doesn't need that shit right now. Don't need any accident's either" He muttered, and I slowly nodded, taking in what he was saying but thinking something completely different. Why couldn't Carl learn how to shoot? He was almost 13; he wanted to defend his camp, his family. I bit down on my inside cheek gently and pondered the idea about giving him a few secret shooting lessons. Lori would ring my neck if I even mentioned it to him.

"I understand, thanks for the heads up" He smiled and nodded, looking me over again and I frowned in distaste. Shane was always that guy who never seemed to be subtle. "Eyes are on my head, not on my chest Shane, glad to see you haven't changed" I smirked, rolling my eyes as I turned and walked away from him and I could hear him chuckling behind me.

Now where was Daryl? He was the person I needed to keep quiet. No one but Hershel knew about those scars, and I didn't need him blabbering his mouth off to Rick or any of the others. I didn't need questions about the scars. I saw a blonde walking around, rifle up on her shoulder and I wondered why she had it. No one on the farm was allowed to have guns, unless Hershel changed his mind.

"Hey…" I forgot her name, dammit what was her name?

"Andrea" She said, smiling gently and coming over to me and I nodded.

"Andrea, sorry I'm horrible when it comes to names. Have ya seen Daryl around here? I need to talk to him…" I scratched the side of my head and she nodded at me.

"He's up in that tent right there" She pointed and turned back to me "Hershel hasn't given him the okay to go back out yet." For some reason Daryl didn't come off as an obeying type of person, but apparently I was wrong. Usually I wasn't wrong though, so it was weird. Just like how I knew Andrea here was new to holding a rifle.

"Thanks, I'll remember ya name, I promise" She laughed and shrugged her shoulders "It's alright, don't worry about it."

"Knock, knock" I said, not wanting to disturb him if he was resting or sleeping but I heard his voice said "Come in." I pushed the flap to the side and took a step into the tent; he was lying down on a cot, his hands behind his head.

"What do ya want? Here to punch me 'gain?" I smirked and shook my head.

"Actually no, I'm here to apologize about that, didn't look like it's gonna bruise so that's good" He nodded and muttered a "Whatever" towards me. I looked around the tent and then back at him, he was trying to ignore me the best he could but he couldn't.

"And I also wanted to make sure ya understand that ya didn't see those scars on my thigh" I kept my eyes on him, watching for the sign when he would lie but he didn't.

"What scars? I ain't seen no scars but the ones on your neck and arms" I let out a little sigh of relief and nodded to myself.

"Great, so I'll just be on my way then…" I trailed off, turning around to head towards the open flap of the tent but he stopped me by asking the question I didn't want to hear.

"What happened anyways looked like slow cuts. You ain't a cutter are ya?" He grumbled and I raised my eyebrows, thankful that he couldn't see my facial reaction right now. I turned around and looked at him; he was sitting up now, his feet on the ground, his hands on the edge of the cot, fingers rolled to the underside of it.

"No, I'm not" I told him honestly "Somethin' happened a few months ago. That's all there is to tell 'bout it."

"Same reason why ya flinch every time a guy is near ya?" He asked, looking up at me and I just stared at him. Who did he think he was questioning me like this? He was questioning me as if I had done something wrong, like I was at fault.

"I think this conversation in over" I whispered and turned around and left his tent but he wasn't far behind me as I made my way back to my tent.

"Heard ya conversation with Shane, ya knew I wasn't no fuckin' walker. Yesterday, talkin' to yaself on the bike. Ya either escaped from a crazy house, or you were scared of me" He told me lowly as we walked and I spun on him just before we got to my tent.

"I'm not crazy, stop askin' questions or next time I'll give ya more than a sore jaw" I took a step into my tent but his arm came out and wrapped it tightly around my forearm as he turned me around quickly, holding my arms down by my sides.

"Is that a threat sweetheart?" He growled at me, his dark blue freckled eyes blazing at me as I curled my fingers into my palms.

"No it's a fuckin' promise, now let me go" I hissed at him. I didn't want to make a scene but if his hands weren't off of me in the next few seconds…

"I don't take too kindly to fuckin' threats by a crazy chick" He said down at me and that was it. That's all he needed to do to set me off. I quickly swiped my leg back to hit behind his knees and he fell backwards onto the hard ground with me on top of him because he didn't let me go. I grunted when my chest hit his hard, and I tried to wiggle my arms out of his strong grip before he got me onto my back. He was too quick as he rolled us over so that one of his knees was between my open thighs, another pressing against my outer thigh. His hands held onto my wrists tight, holding on with a death like grip over the bracelets I had covering the scarred up wounds there. It was a shock to my system to be in this position. I hadn't been under a man since…

"Let me go" I hissed up at him, trying to move my arms up but he just pressed them back down into the dirt. My heart started to race within my chest and it started to get hotter as my skin broke out in a thin sheet of sweat. Swallowing at the hard lump in my throat, my body started to shut down, going into panic mode. "Daryl, please let me go" My eyes filling with tears as he stared down at me and then let my wrists go once I begged in a soft, painful whisper.

"I wasn't gonna…" He started to talk softly to me but I turned my head, covering my face with my hands. Tears show weakness, I couldn't get emotional.

"Just go, please, get off a me" I sobbed into my hands and he did and rather quickly too. He was shocked at himself for doing that to me when he knew in the back of his mind that his suspicions were true. Why would he do that to me when he knew? He stood there over me, not knowing what to do. He couldn't touch me; I'd probably break his wrist if he tried.

"I'm gonna go get one of the-" He started but I was pushing myself up onto my hands and knees and then into a standing position as I got into the tent and zipped it up tightly.

"Just fuckin' leave me alone, ya got what ya wanted!" I yelled back at him, wiping my hot face as I wrapped my leather belt around my waist and pushed my gun into the back of my jeans. He caught me without it because I thought I was safe, never again was this thing leaving me again. I pulled open the tent a few minutes later and he was standing there by a tree, clearly waiting for me to come back out and it made me check my face again for tears but my face was dried off by now.

I walked passed him into the woods and he said "I didn't mean to hurt ya, wasn't my intentions" I turned and glanced at him.

"You didn't hurt me Daryl, just caught me off guard is all" I muttered and he nodded once. He looked torn up about what had happened just a few minutes ago. It had gotten out of hand, I could admit that. I struck him first, knowing damn well that he was going to pin me because he was stronger. Looking back at the woods that were in front of me and then back at him, I sighed deeply.

"Hershel say you had to be bed ridden all day or somethin'?" I asked him and he shook his head and took a step away from the tree, his hands coming out of the front of his jeans.

"I'll go grab my crossbow" He muttered and I nodded as he walked away back to his tent. I took in deep breaths as I braided my hair back and tied an elastic around the end of my blonde hair. He didn't get stopped comin' back with his crossbow slung over his right shoulder, the less people knew the better. I started to walk into the woods, my arms crossed over my chest as we walked in silence.

There weren't any walkers around the woods as we walked, which was good. I didn't want to pull my knife out, in fear of slitting the wrong throat. We found a stream a few miles in and we both crouched down and cleaned our dirty hands. Well I did at least, and I splashed the cool water against my face. Sitting back against the rocks, I watched as the stream moved down slowly through the rocks and down by the river a few miles away.

"I was on my own for 3 months before it happened" I whispered, my chest tightening up and I heard him make a grumbling noise.

"Ya don't need ta tell me the story, I have an imagination" he said in a low voice as he fidgeted with the arrows on his crossbow.

"Are ya gonna leave if I do talk about it?" I looked over at him and he glanced at me, still playing with his toy before shaking his head at me. I put my head back against the large rock, or boulder I was lying on top of and continued in a hushed voice.

"I went out on a run, I was in Northern Georgia at the time tryin' to find Lori and Carl because my dad told me that Rick was dead. It was just a normal in and out routine that I always did during the day and the guys caught me off guard. I thought I had cleared the place but they had been trailing me for a while it seemed…" I cleared my throat and looked up at the sky, trying to find the right words to say next.

* * *

He was listening, even though he didn't wanna hear about it 'cause it was having a strange effect on him. He wanted to kill those guys who took her against her will. Slowly peel back there skin until they begged him to kill them. He glanced over at her as her bright blue-gray eyes were fixated up at the blue sky. No matter how fucked up the world got, the sky never changed. She was so thin, and from hearing what Hershel was telling him last night about her, she had been thinner. He couldn't imagine her being thinner, being cut up. It made his stomach turn just thinking about how beautiful this girl must have been before the world went to shit, no scars, and no nightmares. Sure, she was still beautiful as all hell but she was cold, distant now. The world had changed her into a hunter, a predator. In some ways, he guessed that she was like him. So that's why he was staying quiet, listening to her tell the truth for once in her life, because this was something she wasn't about to tell anyone else.

* * *

"I was quick to react but I wasn't quick enough… One of them hit me in the back of my head with a pipe. Passed out for a few hours…" I bit down on my bottom lip, wrapping my arms around my stomach in a secure way before continuing again. "I could barely move when I woke up, said they gave me a strong sedative. I tried gettin' away but there wasn't a use, my whole body went numb and I couldn't fight back. I got one good hit into a guy and that's when the slicing started." I moved my hand down to touch my upper thigh "Anytime I protest or tried to fight back, I received one slow slice… After a while it stopped hurting, so I stopped protesting." I flashed back to those moments, when I just laid there and took it as if it didn't hurt, as if it didn't feel like my insides were being shredded down to sandpaper.

"I made a plan up in my head the third night, they had left my bag of clothes and my knife belt by a corner in the room and I saw it when they opened the door one day to the small shed they had me in. It couldn't be seen in the darkness, but they made a mistake. The next day after they left, I got out of the ropes and made it to my bag…" I rubbed at my wrists now; I could feel the phantom soreness in them, as well as my shoulders as if they had been held behind my back for a few days. My arms couldn't work right for a week after that night.

"Pulled on my clothes, grabbed my gun and waited. I only had 3 bullets left and the first one went quickly once one of them stepped into the shed with me. I didn't hesitate, it was all adrenaline from there on out. One of them called me…" I shivered a bit and sat up, looking back out along the stream of water "He called me pretty girl when he was smackin' me around and he said that again after I had killed his friend. It just set me off, it was like it wasn't me" I took in a deep breath and I heard him move beside me, so I glanced over. He wasn't coming closer; he was just laying down now.

"Ya survival instincts kicked in, ain't nothin' wrong with that" He said to me, keeping his eyes off of me and up at the sky. I nodded, at least he didn't see anything wrong with it, but it still gave me nightmares. Killing those men wasn't the only thing that had happened to me that night; they weren't the only people I had killed.

"I shot two of 'em outside and there was two others but they didn't want anythin' to do with me. One actually begged, so I killed his friend. I told him to beg, like it was gonna change my mind" I shook my head lightly, bringing my knees up to my chest and I wrapped my arms around them. "I slit his throat after he told me that he had a family back at his camp, it was like this sick amusement to me, but now when I think about it, it was just plain disgustin' what I did."

"You were settin' things right, guys took advantage of ya. You had every right to kill 'em all, nothin' to feel bad about" He said to me, and I looked over at him and he was looking at me now. He didn't look mad, or repulsed by what I was telling him. He actually looked relieved.

"Are you relieved that I kill them?" I asked him and he looked back up at the sky, avoiding my gaze.

"I woulda had ya bring me to their camp, I woulda killed every last one of 'em slowly. So see, ain't a bad thing to feel that way" He muttered at me and I nodded, eyeing him warily.

"I was on this adrenaline rush, so I grabbed my bag stuffed all the knives into it and walked back through the woods as if nothing had happened. I heard one of 'em talkin' about their camp a few miles down the road a day prior, so that's where I headed. I waited until they all fell asleep, then I slit all the men's throats before they had a chance to scream out for help…" I glanced back at him, trying to see his reaction but he just nodded, his eyes narrowing at the corners a bit, but that was it. He wasn't disgusted by my confession, he looked somewhat proud?

I lay back down on the smooth boulder under me and looked up at the sky with him, glancing over at him curiously while he looked at me.

"Shit like that ain't gonna happen again, ya got me lookin' out for ya'." He was being honest and it made something inside of my chest tighten.

"When ya helped me out yesterday, that must've been hard right?" He asked a few minutes later and I nodded, keeping my eyes on him.

"I thought about leavin' ya to be honest. You were sort of being a pain in the ass, plus callin' me a bitch the day before didn't help ya out" That made him smirk and I smiled gently, biting down on the corner of my lip to help myself from grinning.

"I woulda thought 'bout leavin' me too if we're bein' honest" he gave me a short pointed look and I nodded "I do appreciate it that ya did stay an' help me out 'cause I woulda never made it outta those woods, I was startin' to see my older brother for Christ's sake."

"Brother? You have a brother?" I asked him, putting my arm under my head as I turned my body to face his as he spoke. He nodded briefly, sighing

"Merle, stupid redneck. Rick hand cuffed 'em to a pole on top of a buildin' in Atlanta. Went back to get 'em but damn guy chopped off his own hand with a saw before we could find 'em" My stomach turned, just imagining seeing a hand there on the ground that belonged to my brother. I probably would have thrown up if I was in that situation.

"I'm takin' it that ya didn't find him?" He shook his head at my question and I sighed "So ya lookin' for him?" He turned his head and looked back at me again.

"Was, tried stayin' at our camp before we got here but a herd of walker's busted through there" I nodded and glanced away from him for the first time in minutes and then they glued back onto his face.

"I'm sorry that happened. I'm sure Rick had his reasons for doin' what he did" It wasn't much of an apology, but at least I meant it.

"Yeah, I know he did" Daryl mumbled, his eyes still on me. I swallowed hard, feeling suddenly nervous under his gaze so I turned and lay on my back again, staring up at the blue sky. "How old are ya'? I've been tryin' to figure it out" he asked me and I smiled and shrugged.

"How old are you?" I asked him, turning my head to look at him and he smirked "Older than you" He replied and I nodded, already knowing that much.

"I'm 25" I said, watching his reaction and it was a funny one. He turned his head and started to grin to himself, some wicked thought inside of his head.

"What?" I asked, smiling wide and he looked back over at me.

"You're a baby" He muttered and my mouth parted into a shocked face and then I started to laugh.

"Sorry grandpa but that's my age, and I ain't no baby" I told him, laughing under my breath.

"Well I ain't no grandpa baby girl" He laughed and I smiled, keeping my watering eyes on him. He probably didn't notice what he just called me, but it was nice, even if it was meant as an insult.


	7. Chapter 7

**I apologize for the tardiness of this update. First there was Hurricane Sandy, and then a very cold Nor'Easter, plus work and remodeling my room. Now I have the time to come back to writing and I'm so happy I can share more with you all. So enjoy Chapter 7, Reviews and Follows are the best you can give me for the holidays so please feel free so do so :) xo**

* * *

As we walked back to the farm we were quiet. I didn't know what he was thinking about but it must have been something pretty hard because his nostrils were flared just a bit, enough for me to notice it at least. The night was quiet around the farm, Carol was cooking something in a pan over a fire she had created but I wasn't all that hungry. Actually I had been feeling sick to my stomach after my burst of laughter about a half hour ago, I hadn't laughed like that in months and frankly, it scared me. So we lay there, looking up at the sky before he mumbled something about it getting dark soon, so we headed back.

Daryl went his own way to his tent and I went to mine, putting the gun down on the small desk in the corner before pulling one of the drawers open to pull out a large rock that I had found a month back that I would sharpen my knives on. Sitting back on the edge of the bed, I started scraping against the dulling blades to make them sharper as I heard someone's voice outside of the open flap of my tent. I could see the dirty Hawaiian shirt and I instantly knew that it was Dale. He bent down a bit and looked in at me.

"Mind if I have a word with you?" I raised my eyebrows and shrugged "C'mon in, what's goin' on?" I asked him, continuing to sharpen my blades while glancing up at him as he stood there in my tent.

"You seem like a responsible, young woman… we haven't had the chance to talk much but I already figured that out about you" He started and I stopped sharpening my blades, he had my full, confused attention now.

"There's something you should know, being Rick's little sister and all…" I could see him struggling for the right words, and it sort of flickered an emotion in me that I hadn't felt in a while.

"Just spit it out Dale" I said to him, putting the rock on the bed beside my thigh, rubbing my fingers over the sharpened blade gently.

"I need Shane out of here" He said, just spitting it out, taking my words literally.

"What did Shane do to you?" I asked, leaning back a bit and putting the knife back into the pouch on my belt as he continued.

"I saw him pull at gun on Rick a few weeks back in the woods, he looked as if he was going to shoot him… and I spoke with him earlier while you were off with Daryl, he told me that he wasn't going to shoot Rick because it's his best friend… and before you say anything, you need to know that I think that he killed Otis as well." So he had picked up on Shane's lie too? I thought I had been the only sane one around here to see him running lies out of his mouth.

"What did ya want me to do about it? Not like I can shoot him" I said expressionless, brushing my thigh as the dust of the rock went onto the floor.

"I just need him gone, for the camp's sake. You care about that don't you? Shane is a loose cannon and he's bound to blow up at any moment" He said to me, as if I could do something about it. I didn't see his point. Of course Shane was going to explode; we all did at one point.

"I still don't see ya point here Dale, there's nothin' I can do about it. Do ya want me to go up to him and threaten him to leave? I've known the guy practically my whole life, sure I've never liked him that much but there ain't anything I can do without it gettin' back to Rick or Hershel." I still didn't mind going to him and threatening him though, but Hershel had told me that the first time I tried to hurt someone on his farm, I'd be gone. Wasn't sure if those same rules applied considering he didn't really know Shane the way I did, but none-the-less, I couldn't kill him. Even if I wanted too.

"Do with the information as you please, you just needed to be informed that this was happening here, _on the farm that you protect, near the people you have been protecting_" He emphasized the words so they stuck in my head.

"I hear ya loud and clear, now if you'd excuse me…" I motioned with my head towards the flap of the tent and he nodded, thanking me for my time.

What did he want me to do? Of course after a somewhat progressive day, Dale was practically asking me to kill Shane. What was I gonna do? Tease him with my body until he followed me deep into the woods and before he could do anything, I'd shoot him? There was no way of that happening. Why was I even thinking about ways to kill him? Shaking my head, I stood up and put the large rock back into the drawer and put the other knife back into my pouch.

* * *

"All I'm sayin' is ease up a bit; ya look like a psycho path" I mumbled as I crossed my arms over my chest while leaning my back against the thick tree behind me. Shane was standing at least 4 feet to my side as we watched the camp move around the next afternoon. I heard him chuckle to my side and I sighed, killing him was looking more easy now.

"How the fuck am I lookin' like a psycho? You're the one with the touching issues" I glanced over to him, heat rising against my cheeks, my hands tightening into small fists.

"I know ya killed Otis to get away. What'd ya do? Almost get caught by walkers and screwed up ya ankle? I'm happy that my nephew is alive and well, but Otis was a friend of mine" I whispered as people were eating around the fire.

"I didn't kill Otis; Dale put you up to this?" He asked, leaning a little too close for comfort to me "Have a little girl do his dirty work? How priceless" He muttered bitterly towards me. My jaw tensed as I turned my head to look at him now, leaning up, looking smug as a fucking clown.

"I taught him how to hunt. Taught him how to never stay behind to cover someone's ass, especially someone's ass that he didn't know" I glared at him in the eyes, my hand sliding down to hold onto the gun at my back, against the tree. He smirked, looking at the movement of my hand.

"Gonna kill me in front of all of these people?" He asked lowly, smirking at me and I could see the change in his eyes. That change when you lost your humanity, when you had nothing to lose. He had lost that the night he killed Otis. He never got it back.

"Don't tempt me Walsh" I bit out as I kept my eyes on him, making sure he wasn't going to pull some stunt on me. He smirked, shaking his head and let out a short snort of laughter and I raised my eyebrows up in confusion, he really did lose it.

"What happened to ya anyway? Not that southern bell we all came around to loving anymore, are ya?" He asked me, bringing his hand up and his fingers slid down the side of my bare shoulder as I closed my eyes for the brief moment, my hand tightening on the gun at my back. "Me touchin' ya bothering you?" He asked lowly and his fingers came up again, then back down on my arm.

"No but it's botherin' me" I heard from the other side of my body and I turned my head, looking at Daryl. "Problem here?" He asked again, keeping his eyes on Shane.

"Why don't ya mind your own business Dixon, this doesn't concern you" Shane said as he wrapped his hand around my upper arm and I turned and pushed him away which forced him to let my arm go.

"You son of a bitch!" I yelled at him as Daryl stood behind me, the others that were sitting down at camp looked over at us concerned. I could faintly hear Rick's voice saying something about handling it. He wasn't going to handle shit. I was either going to kill him, or Daryl was. Shane had his hands up, as if he didn't do anything. My hand wasn't holding the gun anymore at my back; it was gripping the knife down at my thigh. He didn't deserve an easy death; he deserved the slowest one imaginable.

"Rick, you gonna let your baby sister threaten me with a knife? Better take control over this situation before it gets out of hand" He said as Rick walked up behind me, grabbing my hand to let the knife go and I pulled my arm back, "Don't touch me" I whispered to him, not keeping my eyes off of Shane.

"Drop the knife, or give it to me. Those are your options, Shane what did you do?" Rick asked his "best friend" as he glanced between the two. I wasn't giving up my knife, not to Rick, not to anymore.

"I didn't do anything, we were having a simple conversation, catching up" Shane said, lying through his teeth and I took a step towards him. Rick looked back at me, and asked it was true. I glanced at Rick then, my hand coming loose of the knife as my fingers flexed over the leather feel to it.

"Gimme the knife" I heard from behind me, it was in a whisper against the side of my head. Funny how I didn't feel Daryl get that close to me, all my attention had been on Shane. Taking in a deep breath, I looked back at Shane and lifted my arm and pushed the knife into Daryl's hand.

"You ever come close to me again Shane…" My whole body tensed when Rick put his hand on my shoulder, it stopped me dead on my words. He was my brother; he wasn't going to hurt me. He's not, just stop thinking about it. I quickly brushed off his hand and turned back to the direction of my tent. I was fuming, if only Rick wasn't there. Daryl would have been glad I killed him, shut the guy up.

The adrenaline just wouldn't quit, so instead of going to cool off in my tent, I walked down the dirt road and passed the gate, into the field of long grass. Falling back on my ass, I wrapped my arms around my shaking legs and pushed my face onto the top of my knees. The panic attack was rising, I could feel it and trying to push these thoughts of sliding that newly sharpened blade along Shane Walsh's neck was flashing through my head on repeat.

"Go away" I muttered towards the person who had come to follow me. He had tried to be quiet, but it didn't work, not with my ears.

"Fine, thought ya wanted ya blade back" He grunted as he tossed it over to me and it laid there about a foot from me in the grass. I didn't dare reach over for it; I couldn't trust myself right now. Not with that blade. That blade had killed men before; it had seen more blood than a newly fed walker had. I gripped my hands together, rubbing my thumb deep into my right palm to keep feeling in them. It would pass, they all passed and I would be fine in a minute or two.

He didn't leave, he stood there watching me and it was unnerving but I tried to ignore him. He was just keeping to his word, but I didn't actually expect him to follow through with them.

"Go away" I said to him again and turned my head to look at him and he looked me over and shook his head.

"You're fresh walker meat out here, ain't goin' anywhere" And he stood his ground, he wasn't going to move even if I told him every hurtful thing I could think of. He was trying to make me trust him in his own way by staying and staying true to his word. He was there to protect me… just like with Shane. It probably would have gotten to the point of that blade against Shane's neck if he hadn't been there.

"So you were a southern bell, never met one a those before" He was coming closer, and he was smiling. I rolled my eyes, turning back to look out the sunset over the trees.

"Was, past tense" I whispered, taking in a deep breath. My panic attack had disappeared, leaving a small ache within my chest. He took a seat next to me, his legs lying out before him, his crossbow being moved from his shoulder onto his lap.

"Still all the same to me… you didn't come off as one of 'em girls" I nodded as he spoke; it was because I wasn't like that anymore. Things had changed and me being a southern bell wasn't going to keep me alive out in the real world. I shook my head, pushing my legs down to sit Indian style, while I picked up my knife from the grass and shoved it back into the pouch on my belt.

"I went to college, believe that?" I asked him, being sarcastic but he answered it anyway.

"Had a feelin' ya had, didn't come off as dumb. Where'd ya go?" He asked and I glanced over at him and sighed, resting my hands down on my thighs.

"Arizona State, that's where I was when the news broke about the apocalypse… drove back here first chance I got" I muttered, my eyes glues on the sky. It was becoming a habit that we would stare at the sky when we spoke; it was as if we both found comfort in knowing we didn't need to look at each other to know the other was telling the truth. He trusted me, as I trusted him.

"How'd you get so good with a crossbow anyway?" I asked him a few moments later, my eyes traveling back to him, the sun radiating off of his tan skin. He didn't turn to look at me; his eyes were still on the setting sun.

"Been huntin' since I can remember, pretty sure I knew how to hunt before I could walk. How'd ya get so good with a gun and knife?" His face turned towards me now and I shrugged lightly, taking in a slow deep breath before I answered him.

"As for the shootin', my dad made me take these stupid defense classes when I was 17 after I got this" I pointed at the faint scar by my elbow on my left arm to him "from an ex-boyfriend who was careless with me one night. My dad taught me how to use a knife, never thought it'd come in handy one day"

"S'good thing he did, probably wouldn't a made it out there if he hadn't" Daryl muttered and I nodded, biting down on the inside of my cheek. My hand came up to my neck but felt nothing, the necklace I always wore had been ripped off of me that dark night in the shed and I had lost my way through the woods trying to find the shed after killing the men in the small village. It became a habit, my hand going up to my neck while I spoke about my father. It was just a sad memory that I really hated to think about.

"Yeah, it's a good thing he did…" I whispered mostly to myself as I pushed myself up to stand, pulling down my tank top that had ridden up in the back. "C'mon, let's grab whatever's cookin' 'cause I know if I don't leave, you won't." I walked back through the gate, pushing my hands into my front jean pockets. I didn't need to turn around to know Daryl was a few feet behind me, crossbow over his shoulder, and his eyes on my back.

I left Shane alone that night, mostly because Rick was giving me sideways glances every few minutes when Shane would speak. I spoke with Carol about going back out in the woods tomorrow to find Sophia. It had been over a week, and I wanted to be hopeful that we'd find her alive but it was looking grim each time my eyes looked at the night sky.

* * *

"Now where the fuck did he find that damn doll" I muttered to myself as I wiped my sweating forehead with the back of my hand. I looked from left to right once I got to the creek that Daryl had fallen down in to. He had spoken about how it wasn't too far from this place, but he didn't say anything about it being north, west, or east. Fuck it, I thought as I went east. I kept my hands free as I searched carefully along trees and a hidden river in the back woods.

There was nothing here except for Daryl's boot prints in the mud but those had been cut off somewhere in the dry dirt paths. Brushing my fingers back through my tied up hair, I let out a frustrated breath and looked up through the tall trees at the sky and instantly knew that it was past 5 by the shadows being casted. I was about 5 miles from the farm; I had another hour and a half in the woods before it started to get dusk and I was going to make that time count as much as I possibly could.

So I headed south, back to the farm but I took my time to let myself take in every small detail of the woods floor but this turned up to be a dead end as well. There was nothing that indicated that she had been around this way, and if she had she would have stumbled upon the farm. She was a 12 year old girl; she would have been fascinated with the horses that were the first things you saw if you were to go by the farm. But Sophia hadn't. It wasn't just frustrating that I couldn't find this young girl, it was maddening. And it was only maddening because I had never met this girl, I had no emotional connection with her and yet I was busting my ass to try and find her.

I could have just turned my back on the newbies, but I hadn't because Rick, Lori and Carl had emotional connections with them all. Carl and Sophia were best friends, and finding Sophia had been on the top of my list the moment I knew that information. Plus while speaking with Carol, I had become slightly attached with her. That was a stupid part on my behalf. I told myself I wouldn't associate myself with the newbies and here I was getting attached as if they were my own family.

But like I said, it was mostly maddening that I couldn't find a trace of Sophia in the woods. I also hadn't had to pull out my knife at all during the 8 hours of being in the woods either, which wasn't too strange but it had me on edge. No walkers meant something was happening somewhere else, and hopefully they weren't all mentally conversing to make a stupid herd again. I still wondered how they did that, make a herd that is. It was weird, and uncommon. Walkers only groaned and hissed at most, I couldn't imagine them mentally speaking walker talk to each other to gang up on a group of humans.

What the hell am I thinking? Walkers couldn't mentally speak to one another… I must be dehydrated or something. Looking back up at the trees, I turned around just as I heard a loud banging noise echo through the woods around me.

"What in the world was that?" I whispered to myself as I pulled out my knife from my belt and started back in the direction of the farm. That couldn't have been a gun shot, could it? A large tree in the woods falling to the hard ground sounded the same as a gunshot. I couldn't even pin point in the direction of the loud bang, everything became echoes out here during the day because it was so quiet. Shaking my head at the thought of a gunshot, I pushed my knife back into my belt and continued to walk and search until another loud bang caught my attention, and then it was followed back another, and another. Gunshots. I could pin point the location now as if the scene was unfolding right in front of me.

I sprinted, jumping over thick roots and fallen trees as my long pony tail whipped in the wind behind me. The gunshots grew louder and louder against my ears as I tried to keep calm. The farm was being attacked, and from the sound of the gunshots it was by a herd of walkers. I knew I should have gone back the moment I felt something wrong in my gut. If anyone died on the farm I wouldn't forgive myself.

Once I ran through the trees into the clearing of the farm, I didn't stop sprinting as I pulled out my gun from the back of my jeans. Where the hell were they? The shots had stopped as quickly as they started, they couldn't have lasted for over 3 minutes. Scanning my eyes over the camp and back to the house, I saw the group by the barn. I slowed down my steps to a light jog now, coming to the realization that they were just doing shooting practice or something. My heart was pounding against my chest as I sucked in deep breaths to get my breathing in order from the long sprint I just had to do to get back here.

I was close to my tent when I noticed it wasn't just the whole group that was standing there. There was a pile of scattered bodies around the opening of the barn doors. The same barn doors that Hershel had warned me to never go near because he would throw me off of his farm in a matter of seconds if I did. I never questioned Hershel because I grew to trust him. I never questioned why he didn't want me near the barn; I just took his word. This had become a home to me and I wasn't about to screw that up.

As I came to a halt beside Carol, I looked at the dead bodies closely now. They were all walkers; they were all in the barn this whole time? I sucked in another deep breath, wiping my arm against the back of my sweating forehead as I took a few steps in front of Carol to see Hershel down on his hands and knees. Jimmy was holding onto a crying Beth in his arms. What the hell happened? But before I could ask, my eyes caught site of a slow walker coming out of the barn doors. At first the small monster shielded her face but then it was like a shock to my system. I took a half step forward, my hand going up to my mouth in utter shock. She had been here this whole time while I was out in the woods looking for her? But that wasn't the important part right now because the awful truth was that Sophia had become a walker.

Carol gasped a cry of "Sophia" as she walked quickly towards her daughter but I put out an arm and pulled her back as I fell onto my knees and her on her side as she reached out for the little girl. My eyes were glued on Sophia as she turned her head and took in everyone around her. It was as if she recognized them all for a second before that was all horribly gone from her mind. I held onto Carol as she silently cried and I glanced at Rick as he took a few steps in front of the whole group and in front of Sophia and aimed his gun at her.

The gunshot was loud and incredibly deafening against my ears. It was a sound that made flashes of my father's blue-grey yellowing eyes come back into my memory. It was those eyes that kept me awake at night because they wouldn't vanish from my mind. And as I watched Sophia's small body fall onto the dirt ground beneath her, I couldn't help but flinch away from Carol as if she had burned me.


	8. Chapter 8

**What a crazy Mid-Season finale tonight! So happy that the Dixon brothers are finally reunited! Also super bummed we have to wait until February to see what happens. Anyways, here's chapter 8, hope you all enjoy it! R&R is kindly appreciated xo :)**

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"You'd think I'd be bustin' my ass day in and day out to find Sophia in those woods if I knew she was in that barn?" I hissed at Andrea as I pushed the shovel into the dirt again. I just wanted to do this and get it over with and here she was accusing me that I knew Sophia was in that barn, that I knew walkers were in that damn barn. "I didn't know walkers were in there, I wasn't here half the damn time" I muttered out as I tossed the dirt over to the side in the pile.

"I'm not accusing you of anything. I was only asking because it doesn't seem right. You know everything that happens on this farm and yet you didn't know that Hershel has been keeping his dead family and random walkers in there, that's all" Andrea put her hands up, as if acting defenseless Shane and her must spend quality down time together; they acted alike in a lot of ways and it wasn't a good thing.

"Just drop it" Lori said from behind us and I rolled my eyes as I tossed the shovel away, looking over at the blanket wrapped body by the side of the whole I dug.

"I'm sure you can handle this, I have things to do" I pulled myself out of the whole and wiped my dirty hands down over my jeans while I walked back to my tent. I just needed to get out of here, that's all I wanted more than anything at this point. By the time I made it back to my tent, I noticed another tent a few feet from mine. No way was anyone coming to live near me. That defeats the whole purpose of alone time for me; I didn't need someone getting into my business. There was no one near the tent, so I'd have to deal with whoever it was later.

It hadn't even been 2 hours and more things were starting to fall apart. Rick had refused for me to go with him, and instead he was taking Glenn into town to find Hershel at some bar. I'd kill for a glass of alcohol right now, and yet the almighty Hershel was out having a party of his own and I couldn't even go pick his drunken ass up and bring him back. Beth was still in her comatose state in bed, and there really wasn't anything I could possibly do because it had become dark.

"Wanna go for a ride blondie?" I heard a rough, unpleasant voice come from the side of me as I carved the edge of my knife into a tree. I didn't need to look over to see who it was; the voice had me on edge.

"And why would ya think I'd want to be alone in a car with you? Let alone talkin' to ya" I mumbled as I continued carving eyes into the rotten tree.

"Seems as if Lori went out to find Rick, hasn't been back in hours and considerin' she's pregnant and all…" I raised my eyebrows up in confusion at the sudden new information I was receiving from Shane. Lori was pregnant? Why wouldn't she have told me? I knew before Rick found out about Lori being pregnant with Carl, and now Shane knew that my sister in law was pregnant before me? Well there goes family for ya. It had been dark for about an hour, and I needed more gas in my bike if I wanted to make it on the back roads to find Lori. "Are ya comin' or not?" He asked while my thoughts came to an abrupt halt.

"Like I said, I'm not gonna be in a car alone with ya, so go ahead and bring her back safe" I glanced towards him now, keeping my eyes trained on his face as he looked me over. My jaw tensed as I tossed the piece of wood away from my lap and stood up, brushing my hands down over the sides of my already dirty jeans. "Do you have enough ammo? There's gonna be walkers out there 'cause of all the shootin' earlier."

He was calculating my moves as I walked by him, heading back in the direction of my tent and I could hear him following me slowly. If Shane was going to kill me, he would have already. The same goes for me as well, if I was going to kill Shane I would have gladly ended his life yesterday. But for some odd reason Shane was needed for the group to survive. I pushed the flap of my tent to the side and opened up a drawer full of ammo and pulled out two sets of clips as he held the flap open, watching me.

"22 or a 17?" I asked him and he quickly replied "22"

I put the 17 back into the drawer and closed it before handing the 22 to Shane. "How much ammo you got in there anyway?" He pulled out his Glock 22 chamber gun and pushed the clip in securely.

"I have enough, now go find Lori and bring're back here" He nodded slightly, and I could see the brief confusion spark in his eyes before he turned and walked away from my tent. He was confused because I was being nice to him. Ever heard of the saying 'killing someone with kindness' or better yet, 'keep your enemies closer'? Well that's how I was going to lure Shane in to pick at his brain because I knew something was going on, I just couldn't pin-point what it was just yet.

A mutter of incoherent words caught my attention outside of the tent and I knew that if I ignored him he'd come by my tent to annoy me. That's the reason why I was off carving things into trees away from my tent, and his. He brought back squirrels about an hour ago to cook up and I wanted nothing to do with him carving those small furry things out. I had to do it for months on my own and it wasn't satisfying to my stomach, or my taste-buds. So I nibbled on dried up granola bars that I had stored away in my tent, both satisfying and tasty.

Now I could hear Carol's voice, so I stepped out of the tent, hoping that the squirrels were gone from the rope he had strung up on two trees. Nope, they were still there and it only made me shake my head. "All you had to do was keep an eye on her!" I heard Daryl yell at Carol as I stayed with my back against the tree away from their eyes. I would have intervened if I knew someone was going to throw a punch. Carol was too sweet of a woman, and Daryl wouldn't ever lay a hand on a woman unless his life was being threatened. I watched Carol walk a few feet away from me back to the farm without even realizing I was there. I felt bad for her, but Daryl had a point and I knew that he was pissed.

Taking a deep breath, I uncrossed my arms from over my chest and ducked under the rope into his small section of area that he took for his own camp. "What do ya want?" He angrily grunted at me as he pushed another cut up log into his small fire. I raised my eyebrows at his tone with me.

I raised my hands up in defense and he rolled his eyes at me "Heard some arguing, thought I'd break it up but seems Carol already left…" I looked over at his tent and back at him as he walked by me and grabbed a hanging dead squirrel and sat down on a rock and started to cut into it. I avoided eye contact with that mess he had on his hands "Guess I'll be leaving then…" I muttered and turned to get out of his space.

"Wait, hold up" He said, making me slowly turn around to look at him, keeping my mouth shut to let him speak. "Thought you'd be out lookin' for Lori."

I shrugged and shook my head, letting my crossed arms fall to my sides "Shane asked if I wanted to go with 'em but I nicely declined"

"Nicely" He chuckled, shaking his head as he continued to pull out the small meat inside of the squirrel, dark blood was on his fingers now and on his bottom lip.

"Yeah, nicely. I can be nice when I gotta" That just caused him to laugh again, which only made me angry. He didn't know me. I could be the nicest girl he had ever met… but that wasn't me, so his laughing was justified. "Ass" I muttered at him, pushing my side bangs out of my eyes "You're an ass" I said a but louder and he heard it that time because his small snickering stopped.

"You just ain't nice, I'm sure ya can prance 'round here puttin' on a fake smile and battin' those long lashes of yours but you ain't nice" My eyes narrowed at him over the fire between us. I was about to open my mouth to protest but there really wasn't a use for me to explain to him a time when I was the nicest girl, the most respectful girl because he didn't know her. He knew me now, this woman who just defended herself and the people she cared about.

"I was nice to you. When I saved your ass from that cliff, if I wasn't there ya would've died" I said matter of factly but that just earned another chuckle from him. "I did! I saved you!" I said a bit louder now, the heat behind my cheeks rising so it looked like I was blushing but really I was just pissed at this foolish, ungrateful man.

"Sure ya did, and I did thank ya for that" I nodded at his answer, knowing it was the best I was possibly going to get out of him. "Even if I did have to pull myself up"

"You did not, I helped" I held up my palms for him to see the red scrapes that still itched but didn't burn anymore. He looked at my hands and nodded once before tossing the dead ripped open squirrel behind him.

"Right" He muttered "For a girl, ya helped"

Now it was my time to scoff. He really could be a complete asshole when he wanted to be; now I knew why the rest of the group didn't like him all that much. He was sarcastic and arrogant… then why the hell was I still here leering at him? Well because when he didn't open his mouth he wasn't all that bad to look at. My mind kept saying those things me and I just shut that out as I glanced to the fire and then back at him. Hearing in the distance a car pulling across rocks, Rick was finally back with Glenn and Hershel.

"I _was_ nice, I still am Daryl… you should know that by now" I said to him before retreating back over to my tent and up through the small patch of trees and finally into the clearing as I watched Lori, Carl, Shane, Dale, and Andrea walk into the house. Seeing those five people had me on edge. Where was Rick? Where was Hershel, or that Asian geeky kid Glenn?

By the time I made it up to the house, Dale, Andrea and Carl were walking out of the front door. Carl came running up to me and I felt a pang of regret that I hadn't been spending more time than I should have with my nephew.

"Hey Aunt Melanie, where've you been?" He asked as I tapped the visor of the big Sheriff's hat that was on his head. He fixed it so he could look up at me, smiling wide. I wrapped an arm around his shoulders and walked up the steps to the porch.

"Just around, your mom back with Shane?" I asked him as he sat down on one of the large, white rocking chairs and then he nodded.

"Mom was in an accident but she's alright, she's pregnant too, did you know that? I'm gonna be a big brother" He said excitedly. I could hear the responsibility in his voice, he really was growing up quite fast, when did that happen? I smiled at him and wiped my thumb against the side of his cheek to get the dirt off and he rolled his eyes at the gesture.

"I did buddy and that's great news, are you excited?" He nodded again to confirm what I already knew "How about you relax here for a bit, I'm gonna go in and check with your mom to see if she needs anything, alright?"

"Okay, but she's talking with Shane right now…" I nodded but was already walking away and into the house. I could hear their hushed voices as I slowly pushed my back against the wall beside the open door. I needed to know what was going on between them. Even more so now that there was a baby coming into this world in less than 9 months.

"…my husband is back safe and sound… my husband is dead in some hospital…" Lori was saying.

"Oh when are ya gonna stop throwin' that in my face? Huh? I thought that he was…" Shane said, and I took a small breath, making sure my body was completely still because I didn't need this creaky floorboard underneath my boots to indicate to them that someone was spying on their very private conversation.

"I was thinkin' we needed Rick here to keep us safe" Lori said.

"Rick? I keep you safe"

"Like you did with Otis? What happened that night? You haven't been the same since" Lori's voice got lower, and my heart beat quickened as I closed my eyes, hoping that he would just confess so I could kill him now.

"You wanna know what happened with Otis? What happened with Otis happened 'cause I love you... I love you, and I love Carl…"

This wasn't the type of love you have for a friend, no he just confessed to my sister in law that he was in love with her and that he loved Carl as if he was his own son. Things were starting to piece in my head now. What Dale told me a few days ago about how he had seen Shane aiming a gun at Rick in the woods a few weeks back… did Shane really think he could kill Rick and become Lori's man? Oh fuck this.

I listened to the rest of their very enlightening conversation, about how they had ultimately slept together a few times. How Shane had lied to her about Rick not being dead in the hospital, and about how Shane thought that Lori, himself, and Carl were right together. My jaw tensed as I heard Shane get up, his loud boots making loud noises against the floorboards and that was my cue to leave.

I checked in on Maggie, Patricia and a very still and shaken Beth before heading back outside for the night. Things were about to change, I could feel it deep within my bones as I rubbed my hands down the sides of my tanned arms. I wasn't sure that change would be good right now considering the mess we were all in. And I wasn't about to say that things couldn't get worse, because they could definitely get worse.

As I headed back to my tent a voice stopped me before entering to rest for the night "How's she doin?" I turned to look at him, he was leaning against a tree, his mouth clean from the blood from earlier, his hands looked like they had been wiped down as well.

"Fine, I'm turnin' in for the night" I stepped into my tent, but he pulled me back out with what he said next.

"I know you're nice, just given ya a hard time" I looked back at him, and a smile crept onto the side of my mouth.

"I accept your apology, but ya still an asshole" He smirked this time and brushing his fingers over the mop of hair that he had on his head. It was probably shiny and glossy in the sun if it had been washed in the past few weeks but there was dirt still on his face and it looked like his clothes hadn't been taken off of his body in days, so that wash probably didn't happen often.

"Wasn't apologizing, was I sweetheart?" He said to me and I placed my hand on my hip and turned my body towards him now, giving him a look of 'oh really?' and he just nodded once in my direction before retreating back to his side of the camp, which really was only about 15 feet away from my tent. I took a step forward to follow him but pulled it back and headed into my tent, then zipped it securely shut before pulling my belt of knifes off and finally my gun. I placed them down on the table then pulled off my shirt and dirty jeans.

_"No one will believe that you totally just hit him!" Amy yelled, giddy as ever while we both flopped down onto her bed in the dorm room. "I mean I know your dad made you take those lame classes but you totally nailed him! I didn't think you had it in you!" She said again, her drunken slur becoming more pronounced as she continued to recall the thrilling events that had just taken place only seconds beforehand. _

_To be honest, I couldn't believe that I had hit Chase either. My knuckles were sore and I was sure that they would just hurt more tomorrow, but I didn't want to get up to grab ice because this bed was way too comfortable, and I was just too drunk._

_"He was just being a dick" I said to her as I rolled over onto my side to look at her, her eyes closed, a smile on her face while she laid on her back. _

_"He deserved it for calling you fat, you aren't fat, far from it" She said in a whisper, still giddy but slowly coming down from that adrenaline hit. _

_I wasn't thin, nor was I huge but I definitely had extra weight on me that wasn't needed. I struggled with my weight for a good chunk of my teenage life and I was sure to be dealing with it for the rest of my life as well. Exercising didn't help, sure a pound here or a pound there but it was hard to exercise when I was studying or going out with Amy and Deena during the weekdays and weekends. I was known around campus as the southern party girl at night, but during the day a respectable person. It was like a switch, but really it was because of Amy that I broke out of my shell. _

_I moved into the dorms at the age of 18, fresh out of high school and heading into my freshman year here at Arizona State. I was an outspoken girl, but also I would respect the hell out of a person even before they deserved that respect. I kept to myself all of freshman year, had a boyfriend on and off again from back home but we split the first weekend that Amy and Deena took me out to a local frat party. Who knew that gin made some people's real thoughts come out? I didn't, but I learned the hard way. At first Deena wasn't that thrilled to be a friend of mine, she was more known as the campus slut, and Amy was more of a girl like me. Amy grew up in southern Texas; Deena grew up north of New York City. But after a few arguments and a bottle of gin later, Deena and I had become best friends. _

_I had broken out of that southern bell charm after the fall of sophomore year and turned into a person's best friend, or their worst enemy. Anywhere I would go on campus, someone would know me, or they'd know of me. After sophomore year, I had started dating this guy Chase, the president of thee party frat house. Girl's wanted to be me, and guys wanted to date me even more now that I was taken. Chase was a smart guy, until you gave him a few shots of hard liquor and then he'd turn into the worst person imaginable. He would throw fits, get angry, and occasionally punch his hand through a wall. Let's just say, I had to drive him to the hospital a lot because he would need his hand X-rayed. _

_But after tonight, after Chase had called me fat at one of his last parties he'd ever throw before he graduated next month, I had punched him square in the nose… I still had some spots of blood on my white tank top from breaking it. I felt a wave of regret for doing it a few minutes after, but I was handed a quick shot by Deena and that feeling was soon forgotten. I never actually hit someone, other than those defense classes my dad made me take; never in my life would I think I'd need to put those skills to use. I wasn't a fighter; I was more of a lover. Hell, I was sure to see Chase tomorrow and feel completely horrible for what I did, but right now that couldn't bother me because I was now in a giggling fit because Deena just walked into the room whispering words to herself before crashing into the dresser and falling onto her ass. _

"Are ya sure he'll be there? I don't wanna go into town and find him not there and at some other bar" I said to Maggie as I tucked my black tank top into the waist of my jeans and then clipped my belt back into place around my small waist. Daryl, Shane, T-Dog, Andrea and I all had a plan to take one of the cars into town to find my brother, Glenn, and most importantly Hershel.

"He'll be there, they all should be. That's the bar that dad use to go to all the time, if not there then there's a bar just at the end of that street, it's one of those two I promise" I nodded towards her as she brushed Beth's hair back. Her eyes were still open, staring at the ceiling. We needed Hershel back before Beth stopped breathing or something, it was giving me a bad clenching gut feeling as I looked at the 16 year old in the bed, pale as ever and immobile. I took the gun I placed down on the dresser a few moments ago and pushed it into the back of my jeans.

"Alright, we should be back before dark… " I said to her as I pulled a tie from my wrist and walked back through the house to head outside. Wrapping my long hair in my hands, I tied it up tight in a bun while I jogged down the few steps of the porch and finally into the big yard. They were all at the car by the trees as I slowly made my way towards them but a sound stopped me from taking another step forward. My ears perked up and my eyes narrowed towards the road. I could hear a fast moving car, but I couldn't see one yet probably due to the tall grass.

Finally the red truck came into view and my hand grabbed the gun at my back as I watched the car skid into the dirt to a stop. Rick jumped out and Carl came running over to him, hugging his father as he then hugged Lori. Glenn jumped out from the back of the truck and Hershel came from the front seat. My hand fell away from my gun as I wrapped my arms under my chest, watching them all. They didn't look injured, so why did Hershel need to do surgery in the shed? With one eyebrow raised, I took steps towards the group with Daryl after he nudged me against my shoulder and walked in front of me. With a roll of my eyes, I looked into the truck and saw a guy, red blindfold covering his eyes and almost his whole face, arms wrapped around his back. He looked to be out of it, or just passing out.

"Who is that?" I finally spoke up, keeping my eyes on the guy in the back seat.

"That's Randall" Glenn answered me as the rest of the group started to come to the truck to look at the captive person. Randall? He must have been the one that was hurt then.

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"I don't know I just don't trust it" I said to Daryl as we walked across the field towards the house.

"Me either but what do ya think they shoulda done, left him out there as walker meat?" Daryl asked me, his arm brushing against mine as we continued to walk.

"Hell yeah, Hershel shouldn't be fixing him up when this Randall guy's people tried to kill 'em, it's a shitty move and Randall will probably bring more bad then good" I brushed loose strands of my hair back as Daryl pulled the door open for me to enter the house, I could already hear Rick in there talking about what we should do to this stranger. I wouldn't mind slitting his throat right now if it meant to live as peaceful as we had been doing for the past few months.

I glanced over at Rick as I leaned against the wall with Daryl beside me behind the crowded table. Nothing was figured out in the few minutes I spent standing there, which wasn't a surprise. But what was a shock to me was that Shane and I agreed on getting rid of Randall. That everyone around this farm was living in some fantasy world that Randall couldn't pose a threat to us in the long run if we kept him around.

"C'mon" Daryl said, nudging against my shoulder again. He knew I hated it when he did that, yet he kept on doing it for his own amusement. I walked ahead of him out of the house, but caught the small distasteful look shared between him and Carol. Apparently their argument last night stemmed from Daryl feeling as if Carol put all of this responsibility on his shoulders to try and find Sophia. I understood why he felt that way and I wasn't going to hold it over his head that he yelled at Carol either, because I felt the same way a few minutes after Rick shot Sophia in the head.

"Is there somethin' going on between those two?" I asked as I pointed over at Andrea walking with Shane, speaking lowly so I couldn't even catch a lip reading from their moving mouths.

"I dunno, probably" He muttered "Why?"

"Just wonderin' whose doin' who is all" I said in a joking manner and nudged at his shoulder now while I walked by him to talk to Rick.


	9. Chapter 9

**Finally at a good place in the story for some quality Daryl time. Enjoy Chapter 9, and remember to R&R! xo :)**

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I had woken up later than I originally planned. I heard car doors and people talking and yet I rolled over and fell back asleep. My body just wouldn't let me get out of this small bed, and frankly I wasn't too mad at myself to waking up so late. The previous day was long and tiring, with trying to keep all sharp objects away from Beth. Other than having an emotionally draining day, it was very unproductive. I sat up on the RV with Dale for a few hours during the mid-day, and then around 7, I stayed with Daryl at our tents. Rick and Shane were out letting Randall go far away from the farm as possible so that took up their whole day. I would have offered to go with them if I knew it was going to be a hard task, but it was an easy drive across some towns and then a quick shove out of the car and then they'd make their way back here.

But after leaving my tent 20 minutes later fully clothed and ready for today's boring day, I looked over at Daryl's camp and shrugged it off that he wasn't there. It had to just be around noon now, and my stomach was making unpleasant hunger noises. I rubbed against it as I walked across the field and into the house, hoping that there were leftovers from last night's meal and thankfully there were. I grabbed the container of meat from the shadowed corner of the kitchen, I pulled the lid off and walked around the house nibbling on the dry, cold meat. I wasn't going to eat the whole thing, just maybe 2 or 3 pieces because I probably wasn't going to be eating tonight unless the woman decided to cook again.

"Where is everybody?" I mumbled to myself before going into the front room and Carl was sitting there with Beth. "Finally" I said to myself and smiled at the both of them; they were playing cards on the coffee table.

"Where is everyone?" I asked them as I put the lid back on the container in my hand. Beth smiled up at me weakly and looked over at Carl, then back at me.

"They're all out near the RV talking about Randall"

"What about him? Something go wrong last night?"

"They didn't drop him off, seems that they ran into a herd of walkers and just came back with them. Locked him up in the barn" I nodded, sighing deeply. Of course something would go wrong, now I wished I would have gone. I haven't seen a walker since the barn incident and I was itching to kill something.

"Alright, thanks Beth. How're you feelin'?" I asked her and she shrugged as I glanced quickly to the white bandage on her left wrist and then back up to her pale face. At least it had a bit more color in it than yesterday.

"Better, thanks" I smiled at her gently and nodded again.

"Well I'll be out there if ya need me just come find me" They both nodded as I turned and left the room. I tossed the container back onto the counter where it was before leaving the front house, seeing Rick walking with Dale across the yard. They separated by the time I reached them, and I finally caught a glimpse of Rick's face. That wasn't a walker who hit him that's for sure. I came to my own conclusion that Rick had a heated fight with Shane, threw a few punches and finally stopped before killing each other. Or maybe Rick gave up and just killed Shane before I had to. That would save me the trouble of the nightmares at least.

"What's going on? Why is Randall still here?" I asked Rick as we walked across the field slower this time than he had been just walking with Dale.

"Went to drop him off at some school a few towns over, ran into a herd of walkers so we got out of there"

"And your face?" I asked him, rolling my eyes at his quick answer.

"Shane and I went at it, lost our heads for a few minutes" At least he was honest, pretty sure he didn't tell that story to the others though, so I wasn't going to press on about it. I glanced around at the surrounding area before putting a hand on Rick's coat covered arm to stop him from walking. He turned to me as I let his arm go, pushing it into the front pocket of my jeans. "What?"

"Are ya alright?" He looked at me puzzled for a few seconds before nodding, half sighing and half smiling at me.

"Tired is all, you just waking up?" I nodded at his question, finally getting into a smooth talking flow with my older brother.

"Yeah about a half hour ago, Carl and Beth were in the house playin' cards… I was lookin' for Daryl but couldn't find 'em"

"He was helping out with Randall, trying to get some answers from him about his group. Apparently they have about 30 men and women. They have weapons and from the sound of it, a lot. We came to the decision to kill him and dump his body so he won't be traced back to us" I licked over my bottom lip and nodded quietly as he went on "That fine by you?"

"Are you asking for my honest opinion? Because I've wanted to kill him since I saw him in the back of that truck. I don't know why Hershel patched up his leg when y'all should've just left him there with that pole stuck through it. So kill him, dump him, do whatever needs to be done because I don't feel like fightin' off 30 men any time soon" I smiled at him as he chuckled under his breath and put his hand down on my shoulder and surprisingly enough my body didn't tense up, nor did it start to go into panic mode.

"You and Daryl have somethin' going on? You spend a lot of time with him" Rick said and I couldn't help but laugh. He wasn't being serious, was he? There clearly was nothing going on between us, we were just friends and he was someone to sometimes talk to about what was on my mind. Alright, maybe I could see why he would ask me that question. We snuck off a lot; it could easily be mistaken for more promiscuous things. I stopped laughing and shook my head, smacking his chest lightly and his arm dropped from my shoulder.

"Nothin's going on between us; we're just friends is all Rick, no need to give him a talk about treatin' me right" He smirked, scratching the side of his neck before dropping his hand into his jacket pocket casually.

"It's just the brotherly thing to do is all, c'mon" He said as he motioned with his head to follow him and I did. We walked for a bit before he finally stopped near the back of the barn. "If he does, ya know try anything with you, just let me know" I rolled my eyes at him and shook my head.

"Oh yeah you'll be the first one I tell Rick" I said jokingly, I noticed Daryl now and Rick glanced over where my eyes had landed and looked back at me. There was nothing going on between Daryl and I, we were too alike and I couldn't even fathom liking a man in a romantic way after what had happened a few months ago. Daryl had told me last night that I had to get over it which made me not speak to him for a few hours until I found myself back at his campfire sitting across from him, as he spoke about his mother and father. "I'll um… I'll see you later on. Come find me if ya need help with that" I looked back at Rick but he was looking at Daryl now, he turned his head towards me and nodded.

"We should be good, but thank you" I smiled at him before walking off towards Daryl. He was further away than I had thought but the distance across the wide field was worth it. He was putting his newly cut wooden arrows in order against a tree trunk and a few branches that had fallen down. I heard a small clap of thunder overhead and looked up at the gloomy sky. It looked like it was going to rain but I couldn't feel that dampness in the air that usually you could feel before a rainstorm. It was just dry and slightly windy today, and come to think of it now, it was a little chilly too. It was odd for an august day in the south.

"Get into a little tousle with Randall?" I asked him as I pushed my loose hair over my shoulder to let it cascade down my back and out of my face. I noticed his red bloody knuckles before actually seeing his face, which looked fine as could possibly be.

"Didn't say shit" He muttered as I sat down on a log, brushing my hands down over the dark blue jeans I pulled on earlier. I looked him over, noticing his vest was on the branches by the arrow's he laid down for his crossbow.

"That's not what I heard from Rick…" He looked over at me, stopping his action towards his work. He brushed his hands together and wiped them off from the pieces of wood as I continued "Heard that his group has a large amount of weapons and men, probably lookin' for him as we speak."

"Probably" Daryl said and as he started to go back to work, I instantly could sense something was off about him today. Sure he wasn't the one to speak full length sentences all the time but right now, he was off. From the short amount of time that I had known him, I had gotten to know him considerably well. I was sure I knew him better than the rest of the group that he traveled with because he knew more about me than even my brother knew.

"What happened?" I asked him, standing up now as he continued his work on his weapons.

"Took some swings at him is all. Rick tell ya when he plans on killin' the bastard?" He asked me, briefly glancing up but then back down again.

"No… but most likely tonight. Did Randall say somethin' to ya or somethin' to get you all pissy?"

"I ain't pissy" He grunted, which indicated to me that he was indeed in a piss mood "Why ya out here botherin' me anyway, don't ya have somethin' else to do?"

"I came to check on you… Rick told me that ya went to ask Randall some questions about his group, no need to take it out on me" I sighed, looking him over and shaking my head towards the ground.

"Told me that his men raped some teenage girls while their daddy watched" He said, looking up at me for my reaction and he got the reaction that he knew he would get out of me. My shoulder's stiffened and my eyes grew distant for a few moments before falling back onto him as he stood up, brushing off his dirty hands again. "Now ya know why I didn't tell ya" He mumbled, shaking his head at himself.

"Shoulda kept my mouth shut and left it as is, my curiosity will probably get me killed one of these days" I said and leaned over, banishing the horrible thoughts from entering my mind but they were seeping in against my better judgment. Thoughts of rough hands against my soft, scarred up skin entered my mind and I bit my lip, pushing it back while grabbing his vest and running my fingers over the wing patchwork.

"You were gonna find out sooner or later" He said, trying to reason with me but I really wasn't hearing it as I tried to focus my mind on something else.

"Did you do this?" I asked him "I was meanin' to ask you last night but forgot to."

"Yeah, beaten up, stitches came loose over the past few weeks" I nodded, looking over at him as he watched me and then started to put arrows into the small holding spaces on his crossbow.

"If I find string I'll be sure to tell ya" I pulled the leather vest over my shoulders and it was big on me, it covered my whole ass mostly and he smirked, chuckling once he looked back over at me.

"Looks good on ya" I rolled my eyes and pulled the large vest together, smiling when the sides could overlap by a hand length.

"Way too big, I'll leave the leather to you" I pulled it off and tossed it back onto the branch where it laid before I arrived over here.

Dale had come to join us not long after, asking Daryl to stop Rick from killing Randall because it was inhumane. I kept my mouth shut as they spoke to one another, watching Daryl mostly at his reaction to Dale's speech about it being wrong and whatnot. They started speaking about Otis and once I heard my name come from Dale's mouth about if it was me who told Daryl that Shane killed Otis, I stood up.

"I mentioned it to him Dale, but anyone who isn't blind knows that Shane killed 'em. Rick doesn't wanna hear it 'cause Shane is still his best friend, I've warned him enough times Dale. He knows but he won't listen" Dale sighed, shaking his head as he looked at me.

"You're his sister, shouldn't that matter?" I shrugged and shook my head as I glanced at Daryl and back to Dale.

"Guess not, and don't ask me if I can somehow tell Rick to not kill Randall because you already know my opinion on the matter" He nodded, still a flash of disbelief came to his eyes but that quickly faded away in a blink.

"C'mon girl" Daryl said as he looked over at me, trying to get us away from Dale. I nodded and looked back at Dale.

"Wish I could help ya, but I can't get into this 'cause the decision has already been made. I'm sorry" He nodded, saddened by my words as I walked by him to go with Daryl into the woods. He stopped first and grabbed the long shirt that was hanging up on the top of the old, broken brick fire pit and tossed it to me. He took my words yesterday morning to heart about how he needed to clean his clothes in the creek we found in the woods. Thank god he did because our side of camp was starting to smell of his sweat and those damn dead squirrels.

I pulled the long button down shirt over my dark green tank top and tucked it in around my waist, leaving a few buttons undone and rolled up the very long sleeves to my elbows. It was a kind gesture, and wasn't something I was going to mention to him because I would already knew what he would do. He'd brush it off as if it were nothing like he did with most things.

"Where we goin' anyway?" I asked him as we kept on walking down a clear path in the woods, glancing around at our surroundings. I had been this way countless times, and nothing was really out this way. Unless he stumbled upon some sort of awesome sight, we were heading nowhere.

"Jus' needed to get away from 'em" He said as he kept his crossbow slung over his shoulder, and I kept my knives and gun on my belt.

"So you decided to take me along with you?" I rolled my eyes and stopped walking, thus making him stop and turn around to look at me.

"What? I'm savin' from blabber about how we're losing humanity and shit. If ya wanna go back and hear the old man out go ahead but I'm savin' ya from a headache" He gestured with his arm in front of him to go back but as I was looking at him, I shook my head and walked by him. "Where ya goin'?" He asked me, coming up behind me.

"Off to avoid a headache" I muttered as I pushed my hands into my front pockets while we continued to walk around the woods. The thunder clapped louder over our heads in the sky, making me jump and he chuckled.

"You afraid of thunderstorms?" He continued to snicker beside me and I could only roll my eyes, huffing loudly.

"No just caught me off guard 'cause it's been quiet" I answered him back while a few raindrops started to fall around us but the tall trees caught most of the rain being pelted down on us. "I don't like rain though" I whispered as the sky's opened up and he started to jog. I growled at him and started to go after him. "Wait up, what're doing?!" I yelled at him as he turned behind a large trunk and vanished. I stopped by the tree and looked around "Daryl?" I called out and then felt him pull me down by my wrist and I fell against him hard.

He grunted as I shifted against him. "Asshole" I muttered and rolled off of him as he made another unpleasant noise. "You deserved that and ya know it, pulling me around and shit" I spat at him and looked at where I actually was. It was a ditch under the large trunk and it was dry, meaning we would be dry from the rain.

"I was tryin' to be nice" He growled, brushing off his vest.

"Ya pulled me down, lucky I didn't kick ya upside the head" I muttered at him, then hit his shoulder and he whispered incoherent curses under his breath while shaking out the arm I hit. We stayed there under the tree trunk for a good 20 minutes until the rain stopped. We were angry at each other for the first few minutes and then we joked about it and fell back into easy conversation.

* * *

"Really another meetin'?" Daryl whispered to himself as I walked with him to the house. We had dried off after 2 hours of walking around in the now dry weather. But now we were back at the house, getting ready to hear Dale out once again, and then hear other's opinions on the Randall situation. They shouldn't be making this into such a big deal, all they had to do was shoot him in the head and toss his body somewhere. It was simple, yet with these people around the living room, it had become the hardest predicament in their entire lives.

Truth be told, Dale was swinging my vote against killing Randall after his pleading with the group to change our minds. He begged and he almost shed a few tears as well, and I felt horrible when I had to walk out after Shane painted the picture of Randall sneaking off and bringing back those 30 men. My swing vote was gone now that that image was in my head, as well as my sadness for Dale. There was no way that Randall was waking up in the morning, I was going to end up killing him or one of the others was, he wasn't going to see the likes of daylight again.

I was the only one who left the meeting early, and I wasn't surprised. I stayed in my tent while waiting for the news that Rick had finally killed him, and then I could sleep easy. But that news never came for about 2 hours, so I headed out of my tent to see the group in their camp, sitting around and eating. They were all to calm which just meant they didn't go through with the plan. They didn't kill him. My jaw tensed as I started walking towards the barn away from the view of the others and pulled the door open to find it empty. They had moved him and not told me either. In my peripheral vision I was seeing red, a hot blinding red.

I walked away from the barn and headed far away from their camp as humanely possible but close enough to make sure I could see them still. Dropping myself into the tall grass, I pulled my legs up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them tightly. How could they not kill this kid? He was going to escape somehow and bring back his men. Those disgusting men who raped those teenagers in front of their father. I could feel the vomit making its way up my chest and finally I choked on it as I turned my body onto my knees and let it flow through my throat and mouth and onto the ground below me. It stopped after three times, and I wiped at my mouth with the sleeve of the shirt I was wearing and fell back onto my ass, hanging my head low as I caught my breath.

I could faintly hear yelling through my popped ears, so I pushed myself to stand, looking back over at the camp before turning my blurry vision to a walker on the ground, covering someone underneath it. I could faintly see white hair and a light colored Hawaiian shirt, and I bolted from the spot I was in. The horrible feeling of being sick was quickly replaced with pure adrenaline as I ran towards them, pulling the gun out of the back of my jeans and shot the walker in the head and he fell back onto the ground dead.

I continued to run towards Dale and dropped to my knees beside him, seeing his stomach was turned inside out because the walker's hands clawed away at his flesh. That vomit started to rise again but I swallowed it back hard as Dale looked at me, gurgling and in shock. His brown eyes were wide as he looked at me and I shook my head, yelling for help as the others had already been running towards this way after they heard the gunshot. I backed away once the group was over here and Hershel said there was nothing he could do. I pushed the gun back into place on my lower back as people softly cried and Andrea took the spot where I was just kneeling, saying something about how he was suffering. I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath, brushing my fingers back through my hair; blinking back threatening tears as I watched the scene in front of me play out. The nightmares weren't in my head right now, they were a reality and it was making me more scared than I have been in a long time.

Rick stood over Dale with his gun pointed at his head, to put his out of his misery quickly. But Rick stayed there for a few moments, and my eyes went to his face. He couldn't pull the trigger. It wasn't in him to kill a friend, even a friend who was suffering so greatly and that would eventually turn into a walker. I put a hand to Rick's arm and he turned his horrid stricken face towards mine as I took the gun from him, he nodded once at me, understanding what I was doing for him. I was saving him the guilt of killing someone that he cared about. Someone that I had started to care about just yesterday.

I looked down at Dale who looked up at me. Those wide, wild, brown eyes still showing pure shock and so much pain. He wanted it done and I was going to give him what he wanted, what he needed. I pressed the cool steel end of the barrel to his forehead and whispered "I'm sorry" and without a hint of hesitation, I pulled the trigger.

His eyes stayed open looking up at me as I pulled the gun away to show a round bullet hole that bubbled up and a thin red line of blood cascaded down his temple and to the ground. I handed Rick the gun and took a few steps back from them before turning around fully, headed back to my tent.

I woke up thinking today was going to be a boring day and ended it by killing a man who thought our group was broken, that our humanity was gone. He deserved better out of all of us and we had let him down.


	10. Chapter 10

**It took WAY too long for me to update this :( I apologize! The next chapter will definitely be up sooner, promise! R&R please! xo**

* * *

_"I have a family; if I didn't help out they weren't going to feed my wife and son!" _

I made him beg, I made his son grow up without a father. I made his wife a widow.

_"I didn't touch you, I swear, please, don't-" _

I slid that knife across his throat slowly.

I could hear the sickening gurgling of blood being brought up into his airway as he tried to breathe. I didn't do it on purpose to make him suffer; but maybe that was my intention… to make him suffer like I had been.

I didn't mean it. I didn't mean to kill him that way. To drag it all out…

As the war raged on inside of my head, I could hear someone calling out my name from outside of my tent. My red, puffy eyes glanced quickly at the zipped up flap. Whoever was on the other side was leaving now, not even making an attempt to open it up. It wasn't important. Nothing was_ that_ important anymore.

I was better off on my own. I was better off without anyone with me; it was easier living in this hell-hole of a world without caring about anyone. When feelings got mixed in with survival skills, things get fucked up and that's exactly what had happened. I started caring about these people, opening up to some of them and look where that has gotten me, with Dale's blood on my hands.

They still haven't killed him yet. Randall. He was the main cause of Dale's death and yet that prisoner was still alive while Dale was rotting in the dirt. If Randall wasn't here and we weren't hearing Dale out about if we should kill him or not, then Dale wouldn't have been in the field, he would have been on top of his RV keeping lookout or chewing someone's ear off with his wise words. My jaw tensed, my teeth grinding together as I stood up from the edge of the small cot I had been sitting on for the past 16 hours. No sleep, no human contact. Just thinking and waiting for the next thing to go wrong.

It was well past noon and to be honest if I could avoid all human contact today it would make my mind more at ease. As I tightened the leather belt around my waist, I kept my eyes on the now unzipping flap of my tent. So long for no human contact today.

"We're packin' up, movin' into the house" He said before he brought his second boot down into my tent and I quickly glanced at Rick before nodding once, pushing the last knife into the side of my boot. He stood there watching me for what felt like forever until I finally spoke up.

"Need anythin' else or was that it?" My words came out past my lips more chipped and edgy than I intended, and it made him shift his weight from his left leg, onto his right. His hands wiped down his white, and distraught face.

"I wanted to apologize… last night with Dale…" He was grasping for words but I quickly stopped him by standing up straight and looking at him, shaking my head.

"There's no need for an apology Rick, I get it; he was your friend so you couldn't pull the trigger" I grabbed my double layered denim jacket and he nodded, watching me carefully as I zipped it halfway.

"He was your friend too, and I shouldn't have panicked and made you do it. You're my baby sister, it was selfish and careless and-"

"Shut up" I muttered, pulling my hair into a tight pun behind the back of my head "Dale wasn't a friend, I'd just met him… so if you're comin' in here thinkin' you did somethin' wrong, forget about it. I didn't mind pullin' the trigger, it had to be done and now if you'll excuse me" I told him as I walked past him and out of my tent but the words that escaped his mouth next, made me halt my steps.

"You're not gonna find him in the barn, we moved him" My jaw clenched, my already tense body rose with goosebumps. "You may try to hide behind some built up wall but I still know you, and I know you want Randall's head on a stake…" I heard him zip up my tent and I closed my eyes, taking a deep needed breath of the chilled air.

"I know this farm better than Hershel does, you maybe tryin' to hide him, but I'll still find him."

"Wasn't doubting you would" Rick muttered as his hand wrapped around my upper arm and as if I wasn't in deep already, my instincts took over before I had time to register fully that it was still my brother who was behind me. I easily twirled my body under his arm, wrapping my own hand around his wrist as I twisted and pulled it behind his back in such a straining way that would a shoulder pop from its socket. My other hand held a newly sharpened knife to the front of his throat. Rick groaned in protest, a few curses escaping past his lips before I could drop the knife onto the dirt in front of his boots, my other hand letting his wrist go.

"Christ sake Melanie!" Rick shouted and I flinched back, holding my shaking hands up, palms facing towards him as he turned around to look at me as he at rubbed his shoulder. "What in the fuck where ya gonna do? Kill me for touchin' you!?" He shouted and I took another step back, flinching at his words. His face was red, the corner of his eyes wincing a bit as he massaged his shoulder. I had hurt him.

"I-I didn't mean…" I muttered, stumbling over my words because frankly I had shocked myself. I just pulled a knife on my brother.

"Like hell you didn't mean it, I've been tryin' to be nice and back off from you and you've been getting better around people but hell! What do I have to do for you to trust me? I'm not gonna hurt you" I took in a shaky breath, my eyes falling from his face onto the knife that laid there beside his boots still. His words snapped me back to his attention "Look at me, I'm not gonna hurt you." I could only nod, my fingernails biting into the skin of my palms at my sides now.

"Hey Rick we-" We both heard but Daryl stopped his walking as he looked from Rick to me, then down to the knife by Rick's feet. "Somethin' goin' on?" He asked as he kept his eyes trained on me. Rick stopped massaging his shoulder, crouching down to pick up the knife.

"Just telling Mel here that we're packing everything up and heading into the house…" Rick look at me and I nodded, keeping my mouth shut "Dropped my knife, she had just told me before you showed up… what'd you need Daryl?"

"Don't matter" Daryl muttered, glancing at the knife in Rick's hand before he looked back over at me "Mel, wanna take watch with me?" He asked and I flexed my fingers out by my sides, wiping the sweat off on the sides of my jeans before nodding, taking one last look at Rick before walking off with him across the field.

"Why'd Rick have ya knife?" He muttered lowly under his breath and I glanced sideways at him quickly before keeping my sights on the horizon.

"I pulled it on him" I whispered, my tone more broken than I thought could happen after something like that. I felt defeated and so torn deep down within myself. I could feel the hot boiling of tears behind my eyelids as I took in another breath to calm myself down before I freaked him out, or better yet, myself. "I'm sure ya had your reasons" he said, catching me off guard.

"You're not gonna ask me why I did it?" I looked over at him quizzically.

"Ya had a rough night. Rick had it comin' by makin' ya handle Dale. Surprised ya caught yourself before ya killed him though… that would've been messy" He tried to joke about it, but I couldn't even crack a smile right now.

"He didn't make me do anythin'. I just… I forgot it was him for a split second. I was gonna go find Randall and kill him so my focal point was on that and he just grabbed me" I tried to explain.

"Ya don't like bein' touched; doesn't he know that by now? Hell I found that out quick" He muttered and the corner of my lips pulled up into a smile. Damn him.

"You were an asshole about it though… Rick's my brother and I shouldn't have done that to him"

"Me? Asshole?" He asked in a mocking tone and I rolled my eyes, looking back at the horizon. We stayed there watching and waiting for something to happen but it was entirely too boring so when Carl came around to steal me away because he had to talk, I jumped at the opportunity.

"What's up little man?" I asked him as we walked to the side of the shed; he instantly pulled a gun that looked familiar to me from behind his back, handing it over to me.

"I took it from Daryl's motorcycle…" I checked the clip and there it was, fully loaded. I sighed deeply, putting the gun into the back of my jeans for right now.

"Why did you take it?" I asked him quietly. He shuffled his feet into the dirt, making a few dirt clouds until he looked at me.

"Dale… it's my fault that he died" I wasn't expecting that… at all. I shook my head.

"Why would you say that? Dale got attacked by a walker, there was nothing you could have-"

"I saw that walker, I was going to shoot it… it was stuck in the mud, I was throwing rocks at it and stuff, but I was gonna do it, shoot it right in the head but it got free and came after me and I ran away… if I had shot it, Dale would still be here-" He explain, continuing his shuffling, not looking at me now. He was ashamed, and he felt guilty.

"Hey come here" I said, crouching down as he stopped and looked at me, taking a few steps forward to be in front of me as I put both of my hands on his shoulders, keeping my eyes on his. "You gotta stop that, this isn't your fault, you hear me? No one knew that was gonna happen to Dale, it was a freak thing alright? And hey if you wanna blame anyone for killin' Dale you can blame me because I did shoot him" I tried to reason with him and he shook his head at me.

"You shot Dale to end his pain Aunt Mel… I could have-"

"Shush you" I said sternly and he nodded. "Remember that time, think it was last year sometime in the summer, your dad and mom wanted a night out so I came over and we watched horror movies and ate all of that junk food until our stomachs hurt? Remember when your mom came home and you weren't in bed yet and it was after midnight?" He nodded as I paused "Let me take this one on my shoulders alright, like last time? You can owe me one?" He nodded again and I smiled, bringing him into me and hugging him tight. "Now go play and stay away from the trees alright?"

"Thanks Aunt Mel" I ruffed his hair after taking off the sheriffs hat and then put it back on him securely.

"You got it bud" He jogged off and I sighed, pulling Daryl's gun from the waist band of my jeans to in front of me, putting the safety on before shoving it back into my jeans. I walked back into the field, looking over the property before shoving my hands into my denim jacket pockets and walking up towards the house. It had been a few hours since the incident and right now was as good as any to apologize for my stupid reaction.

I saw the scraped up stitched wings on the back of Daryl's vest as Rick and him spoke on the porch, a map laid out in front of him on the sill. I took my time getting up there from the field so they could finish whatever conversation they were having, the last thing I wanted to do was interrupt some master plan of where they wanted to drop Randall off… like it worked out so well last time, right?

"Beat it" I said to Daryl as I walked up the steps, glancing at Rick and then back at the gruff man who had seemed to be my only friend on this damn planet now. Daryl stood up, smirking as he brushed past me "Only woman I'd take shit from, just 'cause I know you would kick my ass" I rolled my eyes at his whispered comment as he jogged down the steps and out of view.

"I'm sorry for earlier and thanks for not tellin' that pain in my ass but he already knew" Rick nodded, folding up the map in front of him as he pulled my knife from his belt and handed it to me as I pulled the gun from behind my hand and put it in his hand.

"What's this?" He asked and I sighed, pushing my knife back into my leather belt.

"Carl had it, took it from Daryl's bike…" Rick sighed, checking the clip before pushing it into his jacket. "There's something else…" I whispered, taking a step forward so whoever was in the house couldn't hear us. "The walker that Dale got attacked by last night, Carl told me that he had been throwing rocks and shit at it earlier in the day 'cause it was stuck in the mud. He blamed himself 'cause he couldn't kill it after it got out of the mud and came after him…" Rick sighed deeper now, wiping his hand over his eyes and down over his face.

"I'll have Lori talk to him" Rick said and I shook my head, putting a hand down over Rick's forearm.

"I think you should do it, if Lori found out that Carl stole a gun…"

"I need this Randall thing done already" I rolled my eyes, pulling my hand back and shoved it into my jacket pocket again.

"He wants to talk to his dad Rick… I can't believe I'm sayin' this but you freeing Randall can wait and you know I wouldn't intrude on this but nothing I say to him is gonna make him feel less guilty" I left it at that as I walked down the steps, heading back over to my tent to gather some things up to head into the house. If I was going to get over my fears, this was the first thing I could do. Small steps before big leaps, something my dad always said.

I pulled the drawers open and stuffed my clothes into the duffel bag, pulling off my jacket and pulling on a thermal over the t shirt I had on because it had been getting chillier by the hour, I pulled the jacket back on and stuffed the ammo and extra weapons I had into a separate bag. Taking the two photos I kept in the top draw and stuffed them into the inside pocket of my jacket before leaving the tent behind, heading over to the house as I heard a yell. I tossed my bags into the nearest car and turned around, jogging over to see T-Dog running towards the group of men at the chipped and dirty blue pickup truck.

"What do you mean he's gone?" I muttered as I heard what was going on.

"He slipped from his cuffs" he told me as I took in a sharp breath, looking around the field as I took it in. Randall, he was the stem to all of these problems lately. Why wouldn't they just let me kill him when I had the chance? I ran over to the shed that they were keeping him in, watching as Rick got up from his couched position over the bloodied cuffs. He actually slipped from the cuffs. Oh god. I stumbled out from the shed and looked around, hearing from Hershel that the lock was still on from the outside. My brain went into overload thinking as I tried to figure this all out.

"I can track him" I said and Carol looked over at me.

"If it's our best shot, we'll get a team together and-"

"RICK! RICK!" I heard from the trees to our left and I turned around, watching as Shane came walking out from the woods.

"What happened?" Lori yelled to him.

"HE'S ARMED; HE'S GOT MY GUN… I'M FINE LITTLE BASTARD JUST SNUCK UP ON ME AND CLOCKED ME IN THE FACE" Shane was closer now as his voice quieted down and I kept my eyes on him. Randall jumped him? Took his gun?

"Hershel, T-Dog get everyone back in the house, Glenn, Daryl, Mel come with us" I nodded instantly, without a doubt was I one of the best trackers in the group, along with Daryl. If Randall got out and he was still this beaten up, he wouldn't have gotten that far.

"Why don't we just let him go? That was the plan wasn't it?" Carol said, worried as she hugged her sweater cardigan closer to her thin body.

"The plan was to cut him loose, far away from here, not on our front door step with a gun" Rick said with a gravel to his voice that I had yet to hear from my brother. He was pissed, and I couldn't blame him. "Get everyone back in the house, lock the doors, and stay put!" I walked beside Daryl as he put a new arrow into his crossbow.

"Rick should've just let you kill 'em earlier" Daryl muttered and I sighed as we walked into the woods, the trees casting shadows on the dirt in front of us as we set off behind Shane as he explained where they went before he blacked out.

"Kid weighs a buck twenty-five soakin' wet, you tryin' to tell us he got the jump on you?" Daryl asked as I looked around in the dirt for footsteps but there was nothing to be seen, it looked like no one had been out here for a few days.

"You, Mel, and Glenn take off that way, we'll take this way. Remember Randall's not the only threat out there; let's take care of each other" Rick said and I glanced over at Shane and glanced back down, pushing my hand into my jacket pocket to feel the cool plastic of the flashlight and took in a deep quick breath. We set off and not even 10 minutes later it was dark. I pulled the flashlight from my pocket and shown it down on the ground, looking around for boot prints or anything out of the ordinary. We didn't find anything, so we turned around to try and go in a different direction.

"Wait" I whispered about 15 minutes later, flashing the light at the tree and going up to it and putting my fingers on the dark patch. "It's blood" I whispered, wiping my fingers against my jeans.

"Hello trouble" Daryl said as he leaned down and picked up the cloth that had been around Randall's eyes. I looked down at the scuffle of tracks and a sinking feeling fell into my stomach. I was about to say something to Glenn when we heard a few branches snap and we all hid. I glanced back at the woods and spotted a male walker and I was about to pull out my knife but Daryl shook his head in front of me.

Glenn took a step from the tree and the walker groaned loudly, as if trying to scream as he pushed Glenn down onto his back and I got pushed back by Daryl as he tried to shoot it in the head with an arrow but the walker grabbed onto him, pulling him into him as they struggled. I pulled my knife out and pushed the blade through the top of the skull and it groaned, falling lifeless onto the ground as Daryl brushed himself off.

"Don't tell me not to pull my knife out again, got it?" I brushed past Daryl as Glenn was staring down at the walker. "That's Randall" I whispered, looking over his face and down at his clothes, well it was him at least. Daryl crouched down, checking under his shirt, rolling him over and pulling his shirt up a bit and then his pant legs.

"He's got no bites" He muttered and I raised my eyebrows up in confusion.

"No scratches either?" I asked him and Daryl shook his head, standing back up as he pushed his crossbow onto his back once more. "Broken neck" He muttered and I scratched the side of my head. How could he have died from a broken neck and turn into a walker? Daryl turned around, heading back down where we had been tracking. I pulled the knife from Randall's head and wiped it down on the side of my jeans before Glenn and I both followed him. I leaned over towards him as Daryl continued looking around.

"Take this" I handed him the flashlight and jogged up towards Daryl. "I'm going to find Rick and Shane" His hand caught mine before I had time to jog away from him into the direction we came from, I could catch up to them if I ran and I knew these woods better than I knew the street I grew up on.

"Why? They can track fine" I shook my head and looked down at our hands before looking back at his dirty face.

"I think Shane lied… I saw the look he was given Rick just before we split, I didn't like it. I can catch up to them" I said to him and he sighed.

"That's just fuckin' stupid girl, you ain't gonna catch up to them" I nodded, pulling my hand from his but instantly missed the warm contact against my freezing hand.

"I know this place, I spent days mapping it all out and I think I know where Shane is leading him to" I tried to explain to him.

"What do ya mean, leading him?" Daryl asked and I sighed.

"Just trust me alright? I know what I'm doing."

Before he could protest my actions again, I was running.


	11. Chapter 11

How much time does one think it takes to make up their mind in a life or death situation? If the person dying was someone you had never met, maybe a little longer than if the person dying was a relative. Most people are programmed to sacrifice themselves in order for a family member to live. Now if it were an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend in that situation I'd probably let them bleed slowly but no one wants to see someone they were so close with die at the hands of another human being. Most of the people I have come across on my journey since the end of the world began were selfish, but every once in a while there's a selfless person in that mix who can surprise you.

Sometimes it takes a fast 4 mile run through the woods in the dark with walkers that could jump out at any second and kill you to understand the definition of selflessness. If Shane did come out here with the plan of killing my older brother, well he was going to have to kill the both of us if he thought he was going to get away with it.

"Please be there" I muttered to myself in a quick breath as I was trying to keep watch of where I was running so I didn't trip over anymore roots. I could hear voices about 50 feet in front of me, two rough voices but I couldn't make out what they were saying due to the blood pumping in overdrive through my head. I had to be in time, I just needed to be. I pulled at the knife from my belt and gripped the tattered brown leather as I pushed past through the trees and into the long out-stretched field about a mile and a half away from the farm. They had gone the way I thought Shane was going to bring him, in a wide circle to make it look like they had been covering more distance than they had.

Two men were standing about 10 feet away from each other in the middle of the field. Shane was pointing his glock 22 at Rick, and Rick was holding his hands out. Ricks gun was in his left hand… it looked as if he was going to hand Shane his gun. Why would he be doing that? Why would Rick be doing something so stupid when he could just end Shane's life and be rid of the problem all-together. No, Rick had to be the selflessness one. He had to be the leader. Shane had to be the murderer.

I had to act quickly.

I could either go after Shane from behind, stab him in the throat or I could stab him in his lower back, sever his spinal cord so he'd be paralyzed. But that had the consequence of him hearing me and then shooting Rick faster. I bit down on my bottom lip and took in a deep breath before I could even think of what I was about to do.

"STOP!" I yelled and Rick shot his eyes away from Shane to look at me not even 30 feet away from them by the trees. Shane was smart, smarter than I ever gave him credit for because as soon as he heard me scream he turned and fired at me and after hearing that gunshot, I heard another as the two men came together after Shane turned around to face Rick. I held my breath as pain spread over me. Please don't be Rick, please don't be Rick.

Shane fell backwards as Rick pulled what looked to be a knife from Shane's chest, blood covering the blade. I let my breath go from my chest and took a step forward but I wasn't left with a satisfied feeling as I thought I would. Shane was finally dead, or dying. We didn't need to worry about the threat anymore. My breathing was coming in and out of my mouth faster than I had liked, faster than what was normal.

I could feel the warmth against my shoulder as the liquid trailed down my arm, dripping from my index and middle finger onto the grass. I was 30 feet away. It was dark. I didn't even think him shooting this way would even be a problem. But it had, he had shot me.

I pushed the knife into the empty space on my belt and put my hand up over the wound. It had gone right through just below my collarbone on my right side. I could feel the blood trailing down my back now as I blinked a few times. "Rick" I whispered out, my legs failing me as I fell onto my knees in the grass and his head shot up to look at me.

I was in plenty of fights, seen my fair share of bullets flying, even had a few knife wounds but I had never been shot. I swallowed hard as Rick came running over to me and crouched down onto his knee.

"You're gonna be alright, hey look at me, you're fine" He told me and I nodded, trying to believe him as he pulled a white mattered up cloth from the inside of his jacket and unzipped my jacket and pressed it to the wound "Pressure, keep that there. C'mon we gotta get back to the farm" He sounded concerned, even though he was trying to keep it together so I wouldn't worry more than I already was. I was fucking shot. He wrapped an arm around my lower waist and pulled me to stand. "C'mon you gotta walk" He told me again as I started to walk with him slowly, he was carrying half of my weight.

We got about 50 feet before we heard rumbling behind us, and groaning. Walker. We both turned around and what I saw next shocked my system, and the pain from my shoulder away.

"Rick…" I whispered "He's a walker. Was he bit before ya killed him?" I asked and Rick was just shaking his head. Rick has just killed him. Usually it took hours for a person who was bit to turn into a walker. But Shane wasn't bit… neither was Randall. I looked up at Rick's face as he let me go to take a few steps in front of me, pulling his gun out and he shot Shane in the head and Shane fell to the ground finally dead. Rick's face told me the truth. He knew something that he wasn't sharing with any of us. He knew that Shane wasn't bit, and he didn't look the least bit surprised that Shane had turned into a walker.

"C'mon" Rick said after pushing his gun back into his holster and wrapping an arm around my back again, walking with me across the fields towards the farm. The pain was getting too hard to bare just minutes after we had started to walk and I had to stop a few times to catch my breath. Rick let me go on my own as he walked a few feet in front of me, and I watched him carefully as I could without flinching from the sharp pain of the open wound. "Want me to carry ya?" Rick asked, turning around and then he stopped as he looked behind me. I turned and looked and just as I thought this night couldn't get any worse, there it was.

A herd of about 100 walkers were walking through-out the fielding behind us, following us towards the farm house and the lights that were on at the house. "Oh no, no, no" I whispered and pressed the cloth to the wound harder as I started to run as fast as I possibly could with Rick right next to me, making sure he didn't leave me behind. We stopped behind a tree near the barn, shadowing ourselves as walkers seemed to be coming from each and every way imaginable.

"There's no way we're gonna get around them to get to the house" I glanced over at the barn to our left and back at him.

"We have to warn the others Rick..." He nodded as he grabbed my bloody hand, the cloth had fallen away from my wound as I was running and he tugged me along behind him towards the barn. We made it inside just as walkers started to get closer to us and Rick quickly shut the doors and locked it with the wooden panel. He glanced up to the second floor where the hay was usually stored and he pointed up.

"Get up there and take this, drop it when I say alright?" I nodded and took the silver lighter from him as I pulled myself up the wooden ladder with my hand as I heard Rick splashing liquid on the ground. The oil canister that I had filled just a week prior to this night was sure being used in the right way. Rick then started banging on the doors of the barn, getting the walkers agitated and then he jogged back over to the steps as I pushed myself to stand up, my head light from the blood loss. "Now, Melanie, now" Rick said loudly as I flicked the lighter and dropped it over the group of walkers and they instantly lit up like a fucking wildfire.

Rick grabbed my hand again and we walked towards the opening that looked out along the house, walkers were still literally everywhere. That's when I heard gun shots from behind us. Everyone must have seen the herd, oh thank god. "Rick how're we supposed to get outta here?" I whispered as the groans continued from the burning walkers and the gunshots just got quicker. As if a miracle was being made, Jimmy with Dale's RV came rolling alongside the barn as Rick started to yell at him to park the RV in front of us so we could jump and get the hell away from the burning barn before we got caught up in it too.

We both walked out along the wooden floor and then Rick jumped onto the roof and then held out his hand and I jumped too as we walked towards the back of the RV and he walked down the steps quickly and shot at the walkers so I could have a chance at getting down myself with one arm. I jumped the last 2 steps and pulled the long bladed knife from my belt and bit down on my tongue as I used my other hand and pulled out another knife and started to move quickly with my brother, killing walkers as we passed them.

"I'm going to go help the girls, go try and find Hershel!" I yelled over at Rick as I started running towards the house and I got to the steps in the back and I pulled open the door and went inside. It was dark, but I knew my way around this house even in the moonlight. "Lori?! Beth?!" I called out, but received no answer. "Patricia?! Maggie?!" I called out other names but received no answer again. "LORI?!" I yelled again and jogged through the lower level rooms and to the front door and pushed it open and I walked out onto the porch just as Rick shot at a walker sneaking up on Hershel.

After some convincing, Hershel finally came with us and I got into the backseat as Hershel sat up front with Rick. I pushed the knives back into my belt and leaned back against the cushioned seat. My adrenaline was pumping so much that when it finally started to calm down, I wasn't fully prepared for the pain that my upper body was feeling from the bullet wound.

"Oh fuck" I breathed out, pulling at the jacket as I pressed my hand to my soaked chest. "What's going on?" I heard Hershel from up in front after he had a conversation about the others in the front.

"She got shot" Rick said as his eyes glanced at me from the rearview mirror.

"Shot? Pull over" Hershel said as Rick slowly came to a stop and he got out of the front passenger's seat and into the back with me. The dawn light was slowly coming up over the horizon but it wasn't enough light for Hershel to see the wound. "How'd it happen?" He asked me as he pulled my jacket off slowly, grimacing as he saw how soaked my once blue thermal was.

"Shane" I muttered, hissing as he pressed his fingers to my collarbone.

"Your collarbone isn't broken, and the bullet went clean through. You need to be stitched up… Rick grab me that towel from the dash would ya?" Hershel said and Rick grabbed the white towel and handed it back as Hershel pulled at my blue thermal and pressed the towel to the front of the wound to the back over my shoulder "You've lost a lot of blood, you need rest" I shook my head as Hershel sighed.

"Ya can't expect me to just rest right now" I whispered to him and he pressed his hand down on the back of my wound and I hissed again, closing my eyes as the pain was increasing as he pressed his hands on either side to keep pressure on it so it would stop bleeding.

"Do what the man says Melanie" Rick grumbled from upfront and I shook my head "Just for an hour, it'll take that long to get to the highway" I looked out at the window and then back at Rick's eyes in the mirror and nodded.

"I'll keep pressure on it while you sleep, it should be stopped by then" I took in a deep breath as I slowly moved towards the window and rested my head against the window and closed my eyes. They were incredibly stupid if they both thought I could sleep with this much pain running through my system, as well as so many thoughts pondering through my mind.

Was Daryl okay? Was Carl safe? Was he with Lori? Did anyone die? Of course someone died… I didn't see Jimmy make it out of the RV after he had saved Rick and I. So that was one. How many more were there? 1? 5? I blinked my eyes open again and watched as the car drove along the back roads, trying so desperately to stop thinking all together. Jimmy was dead. Beth's boyfriend who I saw her kissing so many times and confessing their love for each other was dead. Walkers got him; I could only hope that he went down in a blaze of glory like he had told me months ago that that's how he would want to go out. I hoped he got what he wanted.

As I watched the scenes outside moving slowly, it gave me this calming feeling that washed over my whole body. It reminded me of the trips I used to take with my daddy. How he'd put me in the backseat and have Rick in the front as we went fishing for a day. I was only 7 at the time so after those long trips I would fall asleep in the backseat, half of my face pressed against the window to watch the other cars pass by. For some reason that always soothed me, until my head would bounce against the window because my dad would go over a pot hole and then I'd just have a sore face.

It soothed me so much that I did end up falling into a deep sleep.

* * *

When I finally woke up, it was only because I felt my arm being moved and the pain was back. "Stop" I whispered, pulling at my weak, sore arm. I was so much more content sleeping, no one should ever wake someone up by inflicting pain on them, it wasn't nice.

"I'm gonna stitch ya arm up, wake up girl" The deep southern twang made me blink my heavy eyes open and I turned my sore neck to look at him in the backseat of the car. Daryl was sitting there beside me, dirt on his face like usual, hair tattered and sweaty on his head. But he was actually there.

"You're alive" I whispered and I started to move but the pain was radiating through my upper body so I stopped myself and groaned.

"Of course I'm alive ya twit, what'd ya think ya can get rid of me that quick? Not gonna happen" He muttered as he slid his arm around my lower back and started to pull me slowly out of the backseat of the car. I noticed that it was sunset now, how had I slept for nearly 12 hours?

"What are ya doin'?" I asked him as he continued to slid me along the seat until he was standing outside of the door.

"Stitchin' ya up what's it look like I'm doin'" He told me "Swing ya legs around this way, I'll get ya" I swallowed hard and nodded as I moved slowly, keeping my right arm resting on my lap to keep it mobilized as I carefully turned my body and his hands went to my sides just above my hips and I stilled under his touch. "I ain't gonna hurt ya, get over it" He whispered as he pressed his fingers into my sides while pulling me to stand in front of him and my knees nearly gave out from under me as his arm wrapped around my waist. "I got ya, I got ya" He muttered, keeping me upright and against him for a few moments until I could feel my legs.

"Okay" I whispered, swallowing hard as he pulled away from me, breaking the warmth that our bodies were making while being together. "It's dark how are ya gonna stitch me up?"

"Seems I got a volunteer" Daryl said and he motioned with his head behind him and I looked over his shoulder at Beth and she smiled just a bit but it didn't reach her eyes like it used to. They must of told her about Jimmy.

"Beth" I whispered and smiled, happy to see that she did make it out of that infested farm. "Maggie? Patricia?" I asked her as Daryl helped me walk forward and Maggie wrapped an arm around my back, telling Daryl that she had me. He let me go and walked away to grab something and came back just a few moments later.

"Maggie and Glenn are okay… Patricia didn't make it… she was pulled right from me" I swallowed hard and nodded, resting my head against hers gently. "Lori and Carl are okay, so is T-dogg and Carol… Andrea was lost though, some said she got taken over by walkers" I nodded. So we lost 3. Not including Shane because he really wasn't a part of the group that I cared about. "Shane's gone too; Rick said he got bit by a walker."

So Rick didn't tell them that it was Shane who shot me, that it was Shane who caused this whole thing with those gun shots. "Put 'er over there" Daryl said once he grabbed some things out of a medical bag that was attached to the side of his motorcycle. Beth walked with me slowly towards the grass area and helped me sit down. "You gotta… uh, the shirt" Daryl struggled for the words and I nodded slowly as he crouched down and took a knife and sliced the collar of the shirt. "Don't worry I gotta shirt for ya" I closed my eyes as he pulled at the blue thermal until it was sliced down the middle of my chest. "Want Beth to do it?" Daryl whispered towards me and I shook my head, my eyes still closed as I tried to keep my breathing in order. He put the knife back into the empty spot on my belt and he was careful to not touch my skin as he peeled the shirt down over my arms and tossed the shirt away to the side. I was thankful that I left the farm with a bra on this morning or I really would be freaking out right now.

He had me lay down on my side as Beth wiped at the dried blood on my arm and up over my chest gently. "This is gonna sting" Daryl muttered as he unscrewed the cap to a liquor bottle of his and I kept my mouth shut as he poured some on the wound under my collarbone and then on the one on my chest and I put my good hand to my face and kept my tongue between my teeth so I wouldn't scream out but it was very hard to not do so. Then he started to push the thin threading needle into the skin on my shoulder and pull the black string through. I had to admit, it hurt less when someone else was doing it for you instead of doing it yourself. After he was done with the small wound on my back, he wiped the blood that seeped through when he was sewing it up and then rolled me onto my back and made sure to do this one slower, keeping his arms away from leaning on my breasts as he worked. He was even careful enough to not look down at my half naked body as well, knowing damn well I still had one good arm and two perfectly working legs to injure him with.

Once he finished stitching me, he grabbed the flannel that I had worn just a few days ago from beside his medical kit and handed it to me as Beth helped me sit up and put it on me. She also buttoned it up for me as well. "Gotta wash the blood off this, fresh walker bait if ya don't" Daryl told me as he handed me my jacket as well. This was all I had left. After months of grabbing supplies and clothing, this was all I fucking had left. A bloody two layer denim jacket, a pair of blue jeans, my brown boots and my knife belt. The one thing I would have gone back for was the photo of my Daddy and mom. The blankets and ammo didn't matter. I just wish I took that photo everywhere I went instead of leaving it on the top of my tent to look up at before I fell asleep. It was gone, everything was just… gone.


End file.
